The Still Beat
by Anlynne
Summary: What if you learned that the person you thought was your soul mate was only a path to his brother?
1. Preface

No Copyright Infringement Intended

**Dedications**: Like this story, the dedication is in two.

To Kamarile for understanding the power of Jasper. Without you this would likely remain unfinished.

To Sage for editing the preface and first chapter while I was sick.

Thank you two, especially for loving the ageless soldier as much as I do.

**Part One**

Preface

"_Bella, I don't want you to come with me."_

_"I'm… tired of pretending to be something I'm not, Bella. I am not human."_

_"You're not good for me, Bella."_

_"I promise that this will be the last time you'll see me."_

_"It will be as if I'd never existed."_

No... No... No...

_"Where you are is the right place for me."_

_"You're the very best part of my life."_

_"I don't care! You can have my soul. I don't want it without you—it's yours already!"_

_"You… don't… want me?"_

What happened when the one that loved you, protected you, saved you, no longer wanted you? What did a person do without their soul mate? How would they survive? Could they?

I was learning the hard way. Or was it really all that hard? What if the person you loved was only a path to someone else?

I was dreaming. That much I was confident in. I just had to let it play out. It was like watching a movie, only more real. The greenery of my home was real, bright and blinding, the sun playing off of it. There was fresh air in my lungs.

There was Edward. My boyfriend - the best part of myself. He stood there in the shallow of the forest. He broke up with me there only a week ago. He told me he had to go, that he didn't love me.

He was breaking my heart. I could feel it, it was breaking all over again, and I curled in a fetal position on the floor begging the pain to stop, begging him to stay, begging for someone to wake me up from the never-ending nightmare I was trapped in. I'd rather face James than to face the memory I tried so hard to forget.

It was always the same dream and I always begged for the same thing. I was trapped in this never ending circle. I would fight for sleep and I would fight to wake. It was vicious and I just couldn't escape, and sometimes, I didn't want to. It all seemed so vivid and he was right there and if I could get him to change his mind, to get him to stay, perhaps I'd wake up and he'd be there with me. It was insane to think I could change what happened in reality by changing my dreams, but I would try anything, no matter how it hurt to wake up and know that no matter what had happened he wasn't coming back.

He was never coming back…

Then in the dream when he usually fled he faded in front of my eyes, transformed, his bronze hair lightening, his stature becoming an inch taller. Someone else was there in Edward's place. It was his brother Jasper. He relaxed me, calmed me, he knelt by my head and brushed my hair from my face.

"Everything will be fine," he assured in his low velvet voice. "I'm here. I was always meant to be here."

I begged him to stay. I didn't want another person to leave me. It would kill me, I was convinced of that. When Victoria couldn't do the job, the Cullen family could. They would. They had the power none of the others had. They could kill my spirit.

"I'll never leave you. Do you hear me, Bella? I'll never leave you. You're safe with me."

What was the irony in that last statement? He was the one that tried to kill me. He thirsted for my blood more than any of his family. He was the one that posed the most danger, and yet he was the one I trusted the most then, because he was there, and Edward was not. He was there and I was alive.

"Trust me."

I parted my lips and hoped I could speak; my throat was horribly constricted. "I do."

And then Jasper lifted me in his arms and I knew I'd be okay. For the first time since Edward left me I didn't want to wake up from this so-called nightmare. I wanted to sleep forever if sleeping forever meant that I'd be with Jasper. My angel. My guardian angel. Mine.

Why? Because Jasper was the one I was meant to be with. Edward was only a path to him. The dream was the truth - the truth I'd fail to remember when I would wake.

* * *

A/N: A couple of things you need to be aware of:

1. This is the only part of the story that will be in first person.

2. The timeline (including Bella's knowledge) doesn't match New Moon, so please don't confuse it.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Scars

It was raining. It was always raining in the small town of Forks, Washington. Always green, surrounded by too many trees.

Bella Swan used to hate it. She used to hate the rain and the green, thriving for the dry and brown deserts of Phoenix. When she first arrived with her dad she missed home. It was a good outlook for the day when she could wake up to the sun. It was too rare. She truly loathed the rain and cold.

Then she met Edward Cullen. A boy - termed loosely - and because of him she learned to love it all. She loved the feel of his cold skin that smelled so sweetly, how it wrapped strongly around her. She loved him unconditionally and wholly. He made the place bearable, he made Forks home. And he was gone. Left. He didn't love her anymore as he made strictly clear in the forest outside of her home, and she wondered if she could ever love Forks the same way when she felt it had betrayed her so.

Honestly, she missed all of the Cullen's. The family she should have belonged to - was meant to belong to. Emmet and Alice the big bear of a brother and pixie-like sister she never had. Esme and Carlisle with their kind, silent hearts. Even Rosalie, Emmett's wife, though she loathed her for Bella's aversion to her own human life.

Then there was Jasper. Jasper who was strong and quiet, but loving and caring. He was handsome like all of them, but in a different and more dangerous way with his lack of control for blood. There was always an attraction to him that was not all together brotherly, but she loved Edward and Alice (Jasper's wife) and she ignored it. She tried to keep her feelings from him and she always assumed she did a good job. He showed no signs of returning or feeling it from her, as was his special power to feel and generate emotions of those around him.

He was the reason Edward left, or was at least the catalyst. On her eighteenth birthday she sliced her finger on a present she was opening. One drop of blood and that was all it took. He charged at her, and Edward pushed her out of the way. Jasper was angry with himself for being weak, but Bella forgave him, made sure that Alice told him so. It wasn't his fault. It was none of their faults...

The Cullen's were gone, and she was once again being hunted by a vampire. It was unknown to the family but not unknown to her werewolf best friend, Jacob Black and his pack. A week after Edward left she went to the Quileute reservation and sought after her old friend. Through his hints she learned of his transformation into a wolf and together after learning of the danger she was in that the vampire they'd been hunting was Victoria his pack began protecting her and her father.

Victoria... The red-haired nomad, the old mate of James. She was intent on killing her. A mate for a mate. The drawback was that she had no idea that Edward didn't feel that way for her. Not anymore...

Her dark brown hair fell into her face and she pushed it back behind her ear. She was plain. People saw her as beautiful, Edward thought (at least he had) that she was gorgeous. Her skin was near translucent, her hair to her waist, her eyes chocolate brown. No matter what people thought, she was obviously not enough for him and she wanted no one else. At least not anyone she could _have._

The rain pattered against the window. Bella curled up on her bed watched it. She watched where the droplets slapped against the pane and streamed down like small rivers.

She fingered her curved scar on her arm while she did this. It was one of the two scars she had. Miraculously due to her clumsiness she hadn't received more, but even if she had, only those two would've been the most meaningful. The crescent shaped scar on her right hand she gotten when James, a sadistic vampire bit her. If Edward had left her be she would be one of them, but he sucked out the venom, saving her life, keeping her precious humanity. The other was from cause of Jasper, the glass from the birthday table cutting her.

Four months, fifteen days. She was beginning to wonder if they'd all been her imagination, the group of vegetarian vampires she had come to love. She knew they weren't a figment of her mind though. They were all very real. She had the scars to prove it.

Bella hoped for sleep, more than hope she craved it. It was near two in the morning and she didn't feel at all tired. Of course for four months and fifteen days she hadn't slept well. She was accustomed to the sculpted body of ice lying next to her, humming her lullaby. Even worse was anticipating Victoria to come in to slaughter her.

She was about to fetch sleep aids that stayed permanently on the nightstand. She would take anything if it meant forgetting, if just for a little while. She needed _something_. It wouldn't take the dreams or nightmares - whatever they were to be called, but they would give her a little bit of rest to get through the next day. The stretch of days of a lifetime ahead of her.

Then, with one foot on the floor, a shadow outside of her window eclipsed the moon, her only source of light. She was shrouded in darkness. There was only one thing that could be outside of her second story window, and that was a vampire. It could have been Jacob, but Jacob wasn't that small, and as he had proved that one night he made an awful lot of noise trying to come through her window.

Victoria had come for her, she knew it. She was doomed, but she wouldn't scream. If she screamed Charlie would come through and she wouldn't have the hope that Victoria would stop at her. She had to be brave and sit there and let it come. But it didn't help that her heart beat sped a roaring in her ears. She thought she might black out. That would help. She wouldn't feel the sharp teeth sinking into her.

The window opened, the cool January air following, and Victoria hopped gracefully in. Only it didn't look like her... She had wild red hair and though Bella couldn't see the colors of the person, she discerned that this person - who had the figure of a man - was not Victoria. Then who? Not Edward. He was gone...

_Don't scream,_ she told herself. It was funny in a pathetic way; her throat was too constricted to utter a whimper much less a full fledged scream. She couldn't even move toward the cordless phone she placed in her room so she could call Jacob - whose pack and himself had been patrolling her house and woods for danger of Victoria. She wouldn't be able to call him or the Alpha, Sam Uley, or his father Billy. Not like she would've had time. In the spans of half a heartbeat she would be dead. Somehow that was comforting. It would be quick. She would never have to feel pain again. Perhaps in death the longing would die too.

The stranger ever-so slowly raised his hands in the air. "I won't hurt you. I promise."

She recognized that voice, deep and melodic and silky that soothed her to the core. There could only be one person - vampire - that the voice belonged to. Jasper Hale. Her heart leapt into her windpipe cutting off her oxygen.

Jasper!

Curse her for her lack of voice for she so wanted to speak then, to be sure that she hadn't fallen asleep and it was all a dream. She squinted her eyes to be certain he was really there.

The shadow didn't move. "Bella? Are you all right? I didn't mean to frighten you."

She croaked, "I know..." She burst into tears then, hot and scorching down her warm cheeks. It was like a flood from a faucet as sudden as spinning the knob. From the shock or relief or the pure happiness she hadn't known for so long she couldn't determine.

He was there. He was real, and all she wanted at that moment was to run to him and hug him. To feel him and smell him. She never had before been so close to him, keeping a good distance from his teeth and her flesh, but she wanted to be near him then, but she didn't move.

She tried to slow her breathing - her heartbeat that could only entice the vampire who had never learned self-control very well. If she was to die, at least it would be at the jaws of someone she loved, but she wouldn't tempt him. It was an innate habit to keep the distance, like a small voice in the back of her mind - Edward's voice - that told her so.

Then a strong wave of calm came over her, and it became easier to slow her breathing and heart. "Thank you, Jasper," she said gratefully, wiping her tears on her long sleeve.

"You're welcome. Do you mind..." He gestured to the end of her bed.

"No, of course not."

He moved and the light put the room into a glow once more. Jasper sat perched on the end of her bed, soaking the comforter. He was soaked from the rain, specks still hanging onto his lashes and trickle from the trendles of his hair. His back was perfectly straight as he observed her with his very golden eyes. He'd hunted recently.

For at least a minute she studied his features. Her weak human eyes couldn't see the scars that he was covered in but she knew they were there, Alice had told her little of her husbands combative past. His hair hadn't grown (none of theirs did) but she learned the curves that reached his eyes, purple shadows underneath. His neck was tense with desire, her scent all around him, and Edward said once that she smelled better in the rain... It must've been torturing him.

"I'm so glad you're here..." Even his powers couldn't keep out the longing.

He seemed shocked, "you are?"

"Of course I am, I've missed you all so much! Who's with you?" She was positive of the answer, but she wanted to know for sure. She had to know.

"No one."

"Where are they? Where's Alice?"

"Alice is in Alaska visiting the Denali clan. The others are elsewhere. I'm here alone."

"Why?"

"Do you want me to leave," he asked, worry lacing in his beautiful voice.

"NO! No, please, Jasper, don't leave me!"

Hesitantly he scooted closer sending another calm wave to her. "I'm not going anywhere, Bella, please calm down. Your heart is going too fast," he swallowed thirstily.

She nodded. "Okay..." She breathed evenly focusing on her breaths. "Okay... But why are you here... I don't understand..." Jasper always seemed to be on the fringe of the Cullen family and he had never made an attempt to get closer to her. So why? Why him when Edward left?

"I was worried. So were the others, but..."

"But what?"

He shifted in a habit of show of being uncomfortable. After 142 years spent as a vampire he had kept most of his human habits to blend in, especially since becoming vegetarian. "Bella, how much has Alice told you about her visions?"

"She told me how they worked..."

"That's not what I meant."

"I don't understand, Jasper..."

"She had a vision -"

Her heart skipped a beat, she knew (or she thought she did) what the vision was about. "About Victoria?"

His features turned to stone, more-so than it already was, only his thin lips moved. "What about Victoria?"

"She didn't see her?"

"What are you talking about, Bella?"

"Victoria came back for me..."

He was calculating, she could practically hear the whirring in his head as he thought with speed. She recognized that look, it was the same one that came when Alice had her visions, no matter what she saw he asked skilled questions of a practiced nature. "When?"

"I don't know... The werewolves -"

His eyes widened. "Werewolves?!"

That was right... No one knew about the werewolves, at least not her involvement with them. She hadn't known that they existed (though she shouldn't have been shocked) until Edward and his family left.

Jasper flew to the window and slammed it shut, the pane trembling.

"Charlie," she hissed in reminder and they both froze listening for his snores. When they were heard Jasper returned to his seat on her bed. It was odd seeing him there. It was like he belonged...

"Tell me what's happened," he asked politely.

She crossed her legs, leaned on her knees and told him everything. She told him of her best friend as she watched the hard lines forming in his face as though willing himself stay calm. She told him of how the pack was hunting Victoria and that seemed to lighten him up considerably, the lines grew fainter. She talked to him about every trivial thing in order to keep him there with her and he listened intently on her every word.

She moved and laid back on her bed and listened to him talk about Alaska, the sky, the smells, the Denali clan. She memorized the cadence of his tone, how he didn't speak with hand movements as many people did, he kept them relaxed on his stomach. She memorized everything about him right down to the worn hole forming in the knee of his jeans and she idly thought why Alice hadn't thrown a fit about it.

When her red luminous clock read that it was three-thirty in the morning he said, "go to sleep, Bella. You're tired. We can talk more in the morning."

"No, I don't want to stop now. I don't want you to go," she said quickly reaching out for his hand which he did not take, he looked too surprised. He stared at her hand as if it was something quite foreign and suspicious.

Although she never spoke such words to him before, never so deep and real, she wasn't surprised like he was. That night they had become friends. Not that they weren't before, but that night was truly the beginning of it and she didn't want it all to be false, to give the darkness a chance to take it away. To take him away...

He nodded solemnly. "Then I won't go. I give you my word. But please sleep. I'll be here when you wake."

Before she could say anything else the powerful wave of his power engulfed her, and as she fell she distantly felt her blankets covering her. She fell so deeply into slumber that she didn't moved at all during the night.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Fear

When she woke she found that Jasper wasn't at the end of her bed. Like a heavy rock had been placed in her stomach it fell, her heart with it. She couldn't have imagined it. She didn't want to believe that. He was real, she heard him, felt him. It wasn't true that she dreamed it. Her dreams weren't that satisfactory.

Then her gut lurched almost painfully as her windowsill creaked, but there Jasper, sitting in the space like a spry cat, a white bag in his hand.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I thought you may be hungry." He leapt silently from the window standing at his full height of six-three.

Without thinking about it, just filled with the elation that it wasn't all a dream, she bounded off the bed at him, her arms wrapping around his cold neck sending shivers up her spine.

He froze in her hold. He wasn't even breathing.

Bella knew what that meant and she leisurely moved from him. "I'm sorry, Jasper. I -"

"No, it's quite all right," he told her with his remaining breath. "I didn't expect it... Please, step back."

Slowly, carefully, she did as he asked sitting back down on her bed. He pitched the bag on the bed at her side. She opened it and smelled the wafting aroma of greasy hamburgers and fries. A pile of them.

"You didn't have to buy so much."

"I don't know how much you need to eat. I asked them to fill it up."

"Thank you, that was... Nice of you."

He smiled lightly and fluidly sat in the rocking chair in the corner. With his heels he rocked back and forth surveying her thoughtfully, as if he never saw her before.

She didn't want to ask but she had to be certain that he wasn't going to disappear into the night and leave without notice. "How long are you staying?"

"Until Victoria is killed."

"You're going to team up with the pack?" She found that unlikely. There was the treaty. They were mortal enemies.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust. "No, I'll be here strictly to see that you're safe."

"You don't have to do that..."

"I want to."

She blushed and bowed her head to her food taking out a sandwich. "So when Victoria is... caught, you'll leave?" She didn't want to use the word dead or murdered. She didn't want to think about the vampire being ripped to shreds, just in case she pictured another vampire in her place.

"That will depend," he said cryptically.

"On what?"

"On how long you want me here."

Her head snapped up in shock. Since he suggested that he was there alone she thought that it was temporarily until he went back to his family. "What?"

"I'll stay here as long as you want me."

If his lips hadn't been moving she wouldn't have believed he said those words. "What about Alice?"

He was instantly guarded. "That is another discussion for another time."

"Jasper, is everything alright between you two?"

He smiled widely showing every one of his white and deadly sharp teeth. It was like a gentle warning not to push the subject. "Everything is fine."

She broke their eye contact concentrating on opening the yellow wrapper, and took a bite out of her burger catching the grease that was leaking out of the corner of her mouth with her finger. She only looked up once while she was eating to find him staring at her, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. She swallowed and asked, "what's wrong?"

"To be honest I was thinking of last night. I never understood why Edward liked watching you sleep, but you talk. I do apologize for listening in, I would've left, but I promised you I'd stay."

Her whole face flamed. How many vampires were going to listen in on her? It was good thing she didn't keep a diary, they might read that too! "What, um, what did I say?"

He cocked his head thoughtfully. "You said my name. Repeatedly."

"Oh..." She didn't know what else to say. What did saying his name mean? She wasn't one for reading into dreams, but when she met Edward it was his name that she called out in her sleep. It could only be because of Jasper's sudden return into her life. That had to be it. But in the back of her mind she knew it was more. It was vague and possibly just a feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she felt that she had dreams of Jasper before. She didn't understand why...

"What do you have planned for today?"

"School," she answered crumpling the wrapper. She didn't want to go to school. She would much prefer staying there with Jasper, but was that appropriate? "Are you coming?"

"No, I'll be keeping an eye out in the forest."

Guilt weighed in heavier than before. She already had a pack hunting her, wasn't that enough? Did her... Whatever Edward was... Did his brother have to do the same? And what about Alice? She had to be missing him. "Jasper, I love having you here, I really do, but you don't have to keep an eye on me. I don't want to take you away from Alice. I'm sure she wants you to be with her."

His eyes hardened. "Don't concern yourself with that." His tone ended the conversation.

What was it that she didn't know? What wasn't he telling her? It had something to do with a vision that Alice had... She would press further, but he looked too much like a vampire at the moment.

She stood from the bed taking the bag in her hand to put in the fridge downstairs.

"I'll see you after school."

"Will you? I have a job..." She worked with her classmate Mike Newton at his sporting goods store, Newton's Olympic Outfitters

He raised a brow, "then I won't... I'll wait outside there." He smiled at her emotion of worry. "I won't be seen."

She didn't doubt that... "Will you tell the rest of your family?"

"No. Alice is the only one that knows I'm here. I'd like to keep the rest out of this."

"Why?"

He jerked his head to the door. "You have school, Bella," he prompted leaving no room for argument or more questions.

She sighed, grabbed a random armful of clothing out of her closet and went to the bathroom to shower. When she dressed in her jeans and shirt she went back to take the bag of food and saw that Jasper was gone, the window securely shut.

* * *

Bella went through her classes in a daze. It was the best thing for her as she didn't talk to anyone. Not Mike, or Jessica, or even Angela. She had settled herself for a recluse when Edward left. It was easier saying his name if least in her mind since she'd started hanging out with Jacob. There was no fear in the name, in fact, it helped. It kept him alive in the ironic sense of the word.

She went through her schedule, sat in the back of all of her classes, finished her class work, and left school in her rusty but dependable truck (that rumbled loudly when she started the engine to which no one paid mind to anymore) to go to work.

It sounded like an ordinary, but it wasn't, because Jasper was there. She would see him. It was wrong of her to have his face in her mind the whole day, to think back to the night before when he sat on her bed. It wasn't right of her. What about Alice? What about Edward?

On the way she spied the woods as if she'd catch a glimpse of him or one of the pack. She didn't and she went back into her shell when she walked into work.

After helping six hikers, ringing up a four pairs of boots, twenty packages of climbing rope, eight harnesses, and six backpacks she pulled off her apron stashing it under the counter.

Mike had barely spoke to her in the four months, but he decided to then, coughing lightly to capture her attention.

"Um, Bella?"

"Hm," she asked un-hazing her eyes to focus on him standing with her behind the counter his fingers drumming tautly. She recognized that the hopeful look in his eyes - like a puppy hoping to get a treat for being good - hadn't diminished.

"Why do you keep looking out the window? Are you expecting someone?"

"Oh, was I doing that?"

He nodded.

"Oh," she said again. What more was there to say? "No, I'm not. Have a good afternoon, Mike." Without another word she walked out of the store, pulling her hair to the side so the wind couldn't catch it up in front of her face, the gray clouds covering what would have been a blue sky.

"Bella," he called following her like the golden retriever he was, puppy dog face and all.

She turned waiting. She didn't want to be rude but she didn't want him stalking her either. She didn't want friends. She had no need for them. She was living for Charlie, for Jake, that was all, because as far as she was concerned she was counted among the living dead. She was a zombie.

Yet in the less than twenty-four hours she had felt more alive than she ever had...

"I was thinking... Maybe... Maybe you'd like to go with us to the beach... You haven't been around us in so long."

"No, I can't, I have homework."

"We have the same classes, we all have homework." He sounded like he'd laugh about it, but her demeanor cut him short.

"I just can't."

He got serious. "Bella... We miss you... Don't do this to yourself. It's not healthy."

She shook her head. "I don't want to talk about this, Mike. Drop it."

"No, I won't drop it!" The anger that had flared immediately became fearful, Bella felt it too, standing the hairs on the back of her neck.

At that moment Jasper appeared at his shoulder looking furious and gleeful at the same time. "Best to walk in, Newton. She said to drop it."

Mike spun stumbling back and fell to the concrete in fear. He let out a grunt before scrambling to stand up again rubbing the heels of his hands on his jeans. Bella made a point to watch in case of blood, not that she could do anything about it. If Mike bled he would be dead and so would she. Jasper had a hard enough time controlling himself without it, and so she was relieved to see that there was only dirt smeared and pebbles embedding themselves in his skin. No red, no blood, no copper scent.

"I thought you left," he spat rudely.

Jasper smiled showing all of his teeth again, a menacing act. He didn't need to use his ability to make Mike scared, he could do well without it. "I came to visit Bella."

"Humph, where's your brother? He didn't want to see her?"

He growled lowly. "That is none of your business. Go inside," he demanded.

Mike didn't say anything more, he obeyed instantly, running into the store, slamming and even locking the door behind him. He disappeared past an aisle of special shoes.

The thick atmosphere lessened becoming comfortable and normal. She laughed with Jasper. "You shouldn't have done that," she scolded, but mostly teased, "he could've had a heart attack, and what would we do then?"

"You would leave, and I'd have a snack."

When she gasped, he winked, and they laughed again. The feeling wasn't as odd as it once was, with Jacob's help she learned to laugh, like baby steps.

Jasper, with or without his power, made it easier. In his company it was like breathing, and she hadn't breathed properly in so long. It was easy. She wondered if she'd been missing it all along, that if he was the answer she hadn't seen.

Eventually they sobered up and he said quite seriously, "I wasn't going to stand by and watch him upset you, but I sincerely hoped I didn't cause too much distress to you."

She felt warm, emotion catching in her throat. "No, you didn't."

"You're lying, Bella."

"Okay… You did. But thank you. I'm glad that you care enough to do that for me."

Genuinely he smiled. "I'll be in the forest."

"Jasper," she said before he could run, his body already halfway turned.

"Yes?"

"You can stay inside the house. You can stay in my room." She didn't want to think about Jasper being in the woods where Victoria and the wolves were. It just didn't seem safe, and if she couldn't get Jacob out of the line of fire, she would try with Jasper even if he was the last vampire she should worry about.

"I don't want to intrude." He grinned. "I don't want to intrude _again_, I should say."

"You're staying here to keep me safe, right?"

"Yes."

"Then stay with me. I feel safe when you're with me. I like knowing you're in the room." And she would feel better than having him outside like he wasn't welcomed.

"I suppose I should… Edward had the right idea when he stayed with you. It's easier when I've had your scent with me all day."

"Then you'll stay," she asked hopefully.

"I'll stay." He bowed in goodbye.

She smiled ready to thank him again, but he vanished. She looked around nervously to see if anyone had seen, but of course centuries experience taught him not to act like a vampire when anyone was watching, and no one was around. It was in time too, a classic truck had pulled in. Mike would have to get over his fright and unlock the doors.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Sweet Dreams

Bella didn't see Jasper for the rest of the day. She had good reason to believe that he was in the woods. She didn't want to think about it, but it was the same woods with Victoria; worse with the wolves. She didn't know how he was avoiding them, perhaps he was staying on his side of the line. Victoria, however, barely recognized the lines, always dancing around the wolves. What she was doing when Jasper was in there… Her chest ached. Bella was nearing an anxiety attack worrying.

She switched her thoughts to the line. It was all stupid in Bella's opinion. Lines and treaties. It was childish that they couldn't come to an agreement. Both the pack and the Cullen's wanted the same thing: To keep peace with humans. They could be fighting together instead of separately. They could be stronger.

Bella took her concentration off of the stupidity of the eternal and cooked dinner for her and Charlie (spaghetti), did her homework in her room away from the noise of the ballgame Charlie was watching in the living room. She was done with her math and her history in less than two hours, and she turned to spend the rest of her day reading her old book, the pages weathered and feather soft, the spine coming loose.

Hours later, dressed in another pair of sweats and shirt ready for bed, Bella leaned over the banister to peep into the lounge.

Charlie laid on the couch, a hand on his stomach snoring to a rerun of a ballgame. He looked peaceful and she was aware of his hard day at work tracking the "out-of-control" wolves in the woods. Deciding not to disturb him she crept down the staircase, clicked off the lights, the television and took the green quilt from the back of the couch to lay over him. He gave one great snore as she tip toed upstairs and into her room.

She shut the door quietly and turned seeing the rocking chair that had been vacant seconds before was occupied by Jasper, his legs stretched out in front of him, a book in his hands.

"Hi," she greeted not over the sight of him in her room, of how right it felt. Among her desk and computer, her bed and her side table, and the rocking chair he was in, he belonged. His breathtaking beauty aside, he looked like he should have always been there.

Or was it possibly only to her that it felt right? Him with her? Them together? The way it ought to have been since they met. Or was it her loneliness? Why did she not know anything to any further extent than that she liked him there? He made her feel good… Feel whole… She hadn't thought about the chasm in her chest that Edward left since he arrived.

"Hi. I hope you don't mind, I saw your book." He held up her copy of Wuthering Heights.

She shook her head, "no, I don't mind."

"You have quite a collection. You like the classics."

"They are the best."

He nodded in agreement. "They are but I meant is my observation that you like old things."

She blushed deeply. This didn't go without Jasper's notice, his careful watch on her. "I'm sorry," she muttered.

"You can't help it," he said understandingly, the thirst not gone from his topaz eyes. "I admit, you are quite alluring when you blush."

"Jasper," she exhaled, astonished at his words.

He blinked, fresh venom shining in his eyes, the closest they came to tears. "I apologize for being so forthright."

"Stop apologizing, it's just... I..." She blushed deeper and she silently cursed herself for it. It would be the death of her yet and in the very literal sense. "I just don't expect to hear those things from you."

"I will stop apologizing if you will."

"Okay," she concurred. "That sounds fair."

"Goodnight, Bella," he wished her lifting the book in front of him.

"Goodnight, Jasper." That felt good on her tongue.

She shed the covers from the bed and climbed beneath them, her eyes slipping closed as Jasper thoughtfully turned off the lights. Apparently he didn't need them to read.

She was tired, she knew she was, her lids were heavy, and she laid comfortable and warm. The latter was the problem. It was why she was turning and twisting the sheet around her legs. She kicked and thrashed, and suddenly sat up in frustration. Blindly, she reached over to the side table for her sleep aids. It was the only way to get a good night's sleep lately.

But as her fingers curled around the bottle a cold hand grasped her wrist like a vice holding her still, not allowing her to move in the slightest. She didn't want to move. There was a shock of electricity, it pulsated stealing her breath, and the freezing fingers twitched as if he felt it too.

"What are you doing," Jasper inquired kindly, but his tone was an order for an answer.

"I can't sleep without them," she admitted.

"Since when?"

"Since he left."

Heavy silence fell on them. She wished she could see his face, but they were cloaked in darkness and it was increasingly uncomfortable to know that he could see her face as clearly as if the lights were on, and worse that his hand hadn't let her go. It wasn't actually worse... It was wonderful and that made it all more uncomfortable that he was aware of that.

Jasper couldn't read the reasons behind the emotions, but it didn't take a brain surgeon to guess why she was feeling the way she was.

"Why can't you sleep?"

She felt embarrassed.

"Don't be self-conscious, Bella. Trust me."

Tears stung her eyes. She desperately didn't want to talk about _him _or why she couldn't sleep. However, it was Jasper. It wasn't Mike or anyone noisy searching for gossip. It was Jasper, and she did trust him. With her life; with everything.

"It's too warm..."

He chuckled lightly as if that particular confession was the last thing he expected.. "May I help you sleep?"

Hopeful... Elated... She was submerged in shame. She was suddenly glad that she couldn't see his expression. "Please."

"Will you let me lie with you?" He sounded as nervous as she felt.

She was pleased by the thought and quickly ashamed once more. It was innocent though. Nothing would come of it. He was simply helping her. "Please," she said again.

Jasper slid in next to her, not jostling the bed in the least, and not releasing his hold on her wrist. They lied alongside each other, his hand traveling to clasp hers. Leisurely he brought it to his lips. She felt the light breeze before she felt the ice touch her, sending her heart into a race out of her chest. It was humiliating how he could hear that, but he didn't say a word, or chuckle, or give any sign that he did hear it. He rested their joined hands between them. It was the only contact they had.

Right away she felt heavy and slow and slept as deeply as last night. Her last thought was a recollection. She didn't have nightmares last night, and she knew that she wouldn't have any that night. She knew the reason too. Jasper was with her. She was safe with him. She was happy.

Happy? Without Edward? Was that a choice? Or were choices taken from her? She didn't have the option of being a vampire, of becoming part of the Cullen family.

She thought Edward was her future, that fate had put them together, but was she wrong? Was he a path to something - someone else? Why did that sound familiar, like she had thought that before?

"Sweet dreams Bella dear," a heavenly voice whispered in her ear.

She did have sweet dreams, of a vampire and her and a different but beautiful future than she imagined.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Bloodsuckers and Leeches

There was Jasper... And her... And a cottage near a dense wall of trees... They were smiling and happy... A fairytale ending from a horror movie-like beginning. The dream slipped further and further away and when she woke, throwing an arm to shield her eyes from the rays, she couldn't remember any of it.

Bella didn't expect to find Jasper next to her. Like yesterday she expected him to have left, but there he was, beside her, her hand in his as if they never moved. She was so deeply asleep that she might not have.

He stared at her as if memorizing every facet of her features to her brown eyes to her lips. Strangely it didn't feel as though she were under a microscope like it would've if anyone had stared at her like that. Instead she felt precious.

"Good morning Bella dear."

She smiled feeling the need to stretch but not wanting to let go of him. "Good morning, Jasper." She peered at him curiously noticing his new name for her. "Since when did you start calling me Bella dear?"

"Last night. Do you mind?"

"Yeah," she answered.

His expression fell, and she chortled humorously at her joke that inside made her feel awful for causing him the least bit of hurt.

"I like it," she clarified, and saw that those three words made him grin so sweetly that it reached her own eyes mirroring his response. "Why though?" She didn't recall him giving nicknames to Alice. They were a relatively quiet couple. Why her then?

"It suits you..."

Then it was gone, his features drawn in annoyance. "I have to go," he said racing out of the bed. He was halfway out of the window when her hand dropped limp to the bed.

"Wait, Jasper, why?"

He fleeting glanced over his shoulder at her. "I'll be back. You have a visitor, and I'm not welcome here."

She strained to listen, but didn't hear anything downstairs, not footsteps or a voice. "You are always welcomed here," she insisted trying to work out who he meant.

"Thank you, dear, but right now, I'm not. I'll be back, I promise you, once he's gone."

Then he left, the bare tree limbs fluttering outside of her window from his passing, the only evidence that he'd been there at all, that and her copy of Wuthering Heights was lying on the floor by the rocking chair.

Who did he mean by "he?"

Hastily she leapt out of bed, dressed in jeans and a college jersey from her closet and hurried so fast out the door and down the stairs that she tripped on the last step. Luckily she caught herself on the railing, righting herself.

"Easy, Bells," a deep and gruff voice said from her left.

Jacob stood there, a foot from hitting his head on the ceiling, a cola in his large russet hand standing by the fridge, leaning on the yellow counter that her mother painted years ago before she'd been born.

She went through the archway to stand in front of him, her back to the chair under the small table. "Jake," she exclaimed in relief. "It's only you."

"I suppose one of your blood suckers alerted you." There was resentment in his tone, and when she looked properly, leaning her head back, it was there in his face.

She ignored the derogatory term for vampires that he constantly used to refer to them, and asked "how did you know?"

"I can smell them," he crumpled his nose in demonstration, light shivers running up his arms in reaction that he dispersed as soon as it came, though it came with great determination, his jaw tensed with concentration. "They leave a sickly sweet stench. It's disgusting." He bent forward sniffed at her shoulder and instantaneously stepped back. "Ugh, I can smell him on _you._ _Please_ tell me that you don't allow your leech to sleep in the same bed as you!"

"Jake, don't be stupid, and stop calling them blood suckers and leeches!"

"Sure, sure, you must be glad to have Cullen back," he commented dryly with spite taking a gulp of the soda he'd clearly nicked from her fridge.

She hated his bitterness. At the beginning of their friendship (before he turned into a werewolf) she considered him her sun. He brightened her dark life. Then one day, it was gone, as fast as a shooting star, and she was delved into darkness again with brief glimpses at who he used to be.

"He's not here. He didn't come back." A statement of fact that didn't open the whole in her chest and she had no need to hold herself together. It was like Jasper healed her...

This didn't go without Jacob's noticed, he looked down to her stomach waiting for the reaction at any mention of Edward caused. This funnily enough seemed to disappoint him.

"Who is then," he demanded rudely.

"His brother."

He rolled his eyes. "Even better. What's he doing here if his brother isn't?"

"He wanted to see that I was alright. Look, it isn't any of your concern -"

"By hell it is!" He threw the empty can aside, it clattering to the opposing wall of the kitchen. "You're letting them back in your life like nothing's ever happened! They're vampires, Bella, and you're human, they're dangerous!"

"That's not it, Jake!"

"Then what is it? This is a story I'm _dying_ to hear."

"Oh, very funny, just downright comical. I don't have time for this. Tell me what it is that you want, and leave."

"I wanted to see you but I come here to smell the place wrecking of _vampire_. _I_ came here to see if you were alright but it's obvious I've been replaced!"

The hole tugged, ripping, and her voice softened. "You haven't been replaced, no, Jake, no, you haven't. Please, listen to me. You can't be replaced." She touched his arm, always a high temperature making him feel like he was burning and her along with him.

His eyes closed painfully. "You can't have both, Bells. You have to choose."

"I don't want to choose... It isn't fair. Why can't I have both? The whole treaty is stupid."

"Call it what you like, it's what is. It's the only thing that keeps me from finding your _friend _and ripping him apart."

"Jake," she moaned.

He placed a hand on her cheek. She rested in it despite that she would soon be sweating. "You can see me anytime on my side of the line. I'm not letting you go, Bella. This isn't over. And he's only coming to visit right? He's not staying?"

She thought about Jasper's words yesterday.

_"So when Victoria is... caught, you'll leave?"_

_"That will depend..."_

_"On what?"_

_"On how long you want me here."_

"I think so..." He had to go back sometime to his wife whether or not Bella wanted him to. He didn't belong to her.

Jacob smiled, satisfied. "Okay, then everything will go back to normal soon."

She flinched and this was the one action that went unnoticed by him. She loved Jacob, no matter how bitter he'd become she loved him, he was her best friend, but she didn't want Jasper to go. If she had her choice, she would have him stay forever. Jacob was her sun, but Jasper had become her air. How could she survive without both of them? And why was another choice being taken from her?

Jacob tugged her into a bone crushing embrace lifting her from the floor. "Everything will be alright," he said hotly into her ear so differently than the way Jasper had coolly done it. "I can wait. For you."

"Jake... Can't... Breathe..."

He let her go, her feet returning to the tiled floor. He walked backwards picking up the soda can he'd thrown and tossed it into the trash by the counter.

"I'll see ya, Bells, it's my shift." His shift meaning that he was taking the watch-out for Victoria.

"Jake, be careful."

He snorted, "don't worry so much. We're capable. Remember, it's what we're made for." Silently, despite his large size, he went out the front door. She wondered how he ever fit through it.

She stared at the closed door imagining Jacob transforming into his wolf form, how the fur seemed to explode from him becoming a canine as big as a horse.

After a few long moments she turned and saw Jasper on the couch hands behind his head as if he'd been there the whole time. He seemed utterly content and she would've thought he was watching the t.v. if it had been on.

She walked over sitting next to him, but he made no sign that he saw her, only until he began speaking.

"He misses you."

There was no question to who he was referring to. It wasn't Jacob.

She looked to him, his appearance calm and collected. "He left," she said in monotone.

"For you."

"He doesn't want me. I'm just a human." How many times had she silently told herself that wishing it wasn't true and hoping it wouldn't make sense? Too many times to count.

He lowered his arms and twisted his body to hers. He was appalled at her statement. "He does want you," he said confidently. "But more importantly, you are not just a human. If you were..." He broke the space between them and caressed her cheek with his knuckles. "I would've already killed you. Long before your birthday..." He touched his lips to her ear. "Breathe, Bella dear."

That was right. She wasn't breathing. She'd stopped at his touch. She gasped pulling air into her depraved lungs, black spots dancing around Jasper's angelic face. He pulled away and her mind screamed from the loss of contact.

He grinned. "I feel the same way."

She took his hand, brushing her fingers over the marble of his wrist, right where his pulse point would've been if he was alive. "Will you please explain?"

"I'm afraid it will frighten you."

"You've never worried about that before."

"It's never directly involved me before."

"I need to know, Jasper. What did Alice see?"

He changed the subject. "Will you come with me? There's a place I'd like to show you."

"Then you'll tell me?"

"I'll tell you anything you want to know."

She nodded. "Then I'll go anywhere with you." She didn't mean just then, but anytime. She would go anywhere with him.

"And I you," he said softly and suddenly she wondered if they had just confessed their love.

Love... Was she in love with Jasper? How could she be? Why did she only care if he loved her too? Did he?

"You'll soon know," he told her and laced their fingers.

She gaped at their joined hands, her pale skin appeared tan next to his alabaster. His fingers were long and thin, like spider's legs, but they... Fit.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

The Only Way

Jasper cut through the woods at top speed. He wasn't as fast as Edward but the wind still blew against her face whipping her hair behind her. She wrapped her body securely around his, her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist. She clung to his back as he ran through, the trees a blur of brown and green.

She remembered the motorcycle she bought for her and Jacob. It was the closest thing she could get to reliving the experience of running with a vampire. But she was once again doing that very thing, and she realized that it held no comparison. There wasn't the noise of the engine, not even the noise of his steps. There was just the rushing of the air passing them. She closed her eyes in enjoyment. She missed it so much.

The wind slowed and then came to a complete stop. She was disheartened. She was hoping for a minute longer, but she slid off his back, her foot slipping on the foliage, and when she was about to fall on her backside Jasper spun and caught her waist, their faces not an inch from each others.

Bella scanned his face hungrily, his golden eyes where the darkness of his thirst was starting to intrude, his thin lips pursed tightly together. She didn't feel his breath as he had ceased to breathe altogether but she felt that she had stopped breathing as well.

She didn't fear him. Maybe she should have. He was clearly thirsting for her blood, possibly teetering on the edge of whether or not to give in, but none of that was really up front of her mind. All she was thinking was that if she lifted herself just a little her lips would touch his. They would kiss, and she contemplated how he would taste, how he would feel.

"Breathe Bella," he told her for the second time his sweet smelling breath flowing over her face. It made her mouth water and her heart beat erratically, and he swallowed the venom that was filling his own mouth.

She exhaled, and his eyes tightened, his muscles stiffening, but instead of pulling her away or putting any kind of distance between them he pulled her closer. Her heart raced but this time for a different reason. She feared him for the first time.

"I won't bite," he promised her. "I just need to... Challenge myself. Please, Bella dear, keep still for me." He bowed his head to her neck and swept his stone lips over her jugular and holding frozen there.

She moaned clinging to his shoulders. How she wished that he would move, that she could move, but if she did then he would surely kill her.

"Jasper," she panted.

This time, he moaned, and pressed his lips harder on her. He inhaled. "You smell like Freesia," he noted thoughtfully, his lips moving over her throat as he formed the words. "You smell delicious."

At that moment she didn't care whether he kissed her or killed her. She needed to move. She had to see him. She moved her head, and he righted her with abruptness, releasing her, and he rushed backwards sitting on a trunk of a tree, his hands grasping the wood beneath himself.

She wobbled from imbalance from the suddenness of it all.

"Sorry! I'm sorry," he said with anger directed at himself.

"I'm sorry," she said breathlessly. "I shouldn't have moved."

He laughed shortly. "Yes, you of all people should know not to. I don't have Edward's self-control, Bella. I'm afraid you have to be even more careful with me."

She stepped back collapsing at the bottom of an opposing tree. She bent her knees to her chest. The whole scene was similar to what happened all those months ago with Edward in their meadow. He flew back from her just like Jasper did then when he attempted to be close to her. Except Edward was able to come back shortly. Jasper sat there, his hands not loosening their grip. He was focusing, and she stayed quiet focusing on her own breath and the rate of her heart. She would do anything to make it easier for him.

He was right, she would have to be more careful with him as he would have with her.

"This was the place I came to on your eighteenth birthday..."

Bella took in their surroundings. She hadn't looked properly since they came there. It was like any ordinary woods. If she hadn't known better she would've thought they were outside of her house.

"I was angry but I didn't know what I was angrier at, my lack of control or almost killing you. I wanted it to be my control, I thought that relentlessly for Edward's sake but when I was alone... It was killing you that made me angry at myself. This is the tree I hit..."

She looked the stump, splinters sticking up everywhere clearly not being cut off clean with a chainsaw. She could see how he would have hit it, and the tree fell. His anger, his remorse.

"Are you ready, Bella?"

"Yes..." She hoped she was.

He straightened but his hands were as rigid as ever. If he held any more tighter the wood would come off in chunks.

"Alice told you that the first vision she saw was me, right?"

"Yeah."

"What she didn't tell you is that her vision changed when you came to Forks. Her vision had always been liable to change, we both knew that. We loved each other deeply but it was a matter of time. Neither of us wanted to admit that...

Then you come to Forks and us as a couple became dimmer. She knew I wanted you but she saw you with Edward. That... was excruciating to hear but I had to accept it. If it made you happy... But when Edward decided to leave..." His eyes met hers. "Alice saw me leaving to you. It was set in stone from the second Edward left that I would succumbed to the feelings I've been having for you. _We -_ you and I, were meant to be."

Her eyes shimmered as she thought about her best girl friend. "Alice -"

"Don't worry about Alice, Bella. She understands. She knew this would happen before any of us, and it has happened. She's not hurt about it. She can't see her future now but she has a good feeling about it."

"What do you mean, she can't see her future?"

"She's disappeared. She said it's nothing to be worried about, that she would likely fall into place with someone that she can't see yet. I was reluctant to leave her but she insisted that I follow the still beat of my heart. That was how she put it... She's going to go back to Carlisle and Esme for better company and hopes that Edward comes back."

"Does he..." She couldn't finish the sentence the prospect too painful. Would he even care about them? Was there any _them_?

"No one knows about this. When he does go back home he'll find out. Alice won't be able to hide her thoughts from him forever. We don't think his reaction will be pleasant..."

His reaction? What would he care for? She was nothing to him.

"He still loves you, Bella. He only left for your safety. Of course he was an idiot to think that you'd be safe without us."

She laughed but there was no humor in it. "So this was how it was supposed to be?"

"Always... I feel how strongly you feel about me Bella, how you've always felt. I know you love me more than you think you should. If you let yourself go you can see how much you can love me. It's only been days and it's like we've been together forever, doesn't it? This has gone fast because we're right for each other."

She gaped at the ageless man in front of her. She could feel his apprehension as though she was the one that possessed the talent and if she had that talent she would've used it to calm him, because he was right. She did love him. There was no use to deny it anymore. Alice saw it happening.

None of it diminished what she felt for Edward, it was simply not enough. She felt herself letting go, looking at Jasper the way she wanted to since she'd seen him in the cafeteria at school. She was finally allowed, and she thought she'd lose every feeling in her body from the force of it.

It was like holding on for dear life at the edge of a cliff, thinking of what would happen if you let go, the pulling of your stomach, the descent into your death. She wasn't just falling to her death, she was falling into Jasper, and that posed as much danger, and worse, betrayal of those she loved. But could she ever stop? Could anything mean more than being with him? What wouldn't she give up?

"In that case..." She shakily got to her feet and ambled over to him. He let go of the trunk and rested his hands lightly on her hips. She fixed her eyes on his lips, the very lips she had wanted to kiss earlier. And she was allowed to then.

She stroked his cheek and palmed the spot of his chest where his still beat was. She barely had to bend at the waist, she inclined towards him her nose at the tip of his.

"Tell me you love me, Bella dear. I need not to just feel it but to hear it."

With the barest contact she touched her lips to his. She let him feel her words. "I love you, Jasper."

"I love you too, Bella." He pushed upwards colliding their lips, his unyielding on her supple ones.

Fireworks burst on the back of her lids, an array of color and meaning. She pressed herself against him, them moaning in unison. He gripped her and brought her closer, her legs on both sides of his and she sat on his lap tangling herself to him.

It was powerful, passionate, and she knew right then more than she had prior that they belonged together. She reminded herself to breathe to keep kissing him, to keep holding on to him. This was it... She found who she was meant for.

Jasper's mouth parted and he pulled back pushing her an arm's length away from him. His eyes were closed as if concentrating. He shuddered a little, almost inconspicuous. "Give me a moment, love."

Bella nodded silently.

"I think I need to hunt."

Before he suggested that he take her home she had a question. One that couldn't wait. "Jasper... When Alice saw me becoming a vampire... Who changed me?"

He scrutinized her like he hadn't seen her properly or that he was debating whether to answer her inquiry. "I was the one..."

"Why?"

He laughed darkly. "Because of this... Because it's harder for me than Edward. I don't know about you but I want you for eternity. And Victoria is after you."

Something clicked. "You'll change me soon?"

"It was supposed to be today..."

She was relieved, ecstatic. It was better than she could have ever imagined. "Then I'll be able to take care of myself! This could all be over. Oh, please, Jasper do it now!"

He became tense just as he did when he was enticed by her blood. "Bella, this isn't good. I nearly kill you in the process -"

"But you don't!"

His voice deepened becoming husky. "It was a decision before I came here. I forgot how thirsty you make me. I don't trust myself not to kill you."

"Alice -"

"A last minute decision to suck you dry could change her vision. Edward nearly didn't stop, remember?"

She grimaced at the memory of James biting her in the ballet studio, Edward sucking the venom out of her hand to keep her from changing. She was ablaze, and it was the most pain she had ever felt, and she had felt pain.

"This is different -"

"How?"

"Because you know this is the only way."

"No it's not. Not today. I'll make flight plans and you'll tell your dad that you're going to New York to visit Alice. I'll take you to Carlisle. He'll change you."

"What if I want you to be the one?"

He took her face gently into his hands. "I'm not that strong. I'm suffering right now to be with you. Every night I fantasize about killing you thinking it would be better if you didn't feel it and therefore I wouldn't either. Neither one of us will survive this relationship if I keep you human much longer."

She could understand that. She would take whatever she could get if it meant staying with him. "You'll be with me? You won't leave?"

His eyes shined with venom, the tears he couldn't shed. "Never. This is for eternity. It's you and me now. Nothing - no one is going to come between us. You're mine and I'm yours. You have my word, I'll never leave you, Bella."

That was all she needed to hear. She placed the tip of her forefinger at the crease of his left eye. "Go hunt now. I see that you're getting thirsty."

He took her hand and kissed her wrist (his forehead wrinkling in effort) before kneeling to the ground. She climbed on his back, and he stood and ran, the wind catching her hair, a dark curtain waving behind them.

* * *

With certainty that no one was watching Jasper took her straight to her room through the window. With a quick chaste kiss he left to hunt. He promised he'd return in exactly an hour and that he wouldn't hunt in Victoria's vicinity.

She checked the time on her clock. It read four-fifteen. An hour was a long time to countdown, but she could cook and heat it up later for Charlie's supper. It would keep her mind off of... Everything. Jasper, Alice, Edward, and the clock that couldn't move fast enough.

Seven days... she had only a week until she would be fast, strong, and beautiful. No one had to worry about her again, she wouldn't put the ones she loved in danger anymore. A week was a long time to wait for that...

Bella went into the kitchen and stopped dead in her tracks. Jacob was balancing on the hind legs of the chair at the end of the table, his bare, dirty feet on top of it.

"Jake," she gasped grabbing the stitch in her chest where her heart tried to burst through. "Stop doing this! Don't you ever knock?!"

He smiled her favorite smile, the one that lit up the room in rays of sunshine. "Yes, but it's fun to watch that look on your face."

She huffed piqued and sat beside him. "What are you doing here? Jasper hasn't left."

"Jasper? Wait, the fortune-tellers husband?"

"Who did you think?"

"The big one."

"Emmett," she corrected but he rolled his eyes.

"Where's the fortune-teller?"

She averted her sights from him to her hands as if that could make him disappear. She wasn't good at lying. Why try with Jacob, her best friend?

"Alaska."

He lifted a dark brow, she could see that out of the corner of her eye. "And she's okay that her husband is with you?"

"Mind your own business, Jake."

"Bella, you're not -"

"What are you doing here?"

He sneered, folding his arms over his muscular chest. "I wanted to see that you were alright. Mostly to see if you were _alive._ I can't protect you here you know. You are alright, aren't you?"

"I'm fine."

"I'm worried about you... I want you to stay on the reservation with me." He held up his hands in defense at her anger clear on her face. "My dad wants you there too. For your own safety."

"Thanks, but I'm safe here. Jasper's with me."

"You're not safe with him! When are you going to get it, Bella? He's a vampire! You'll never be safe with him!"

Bella bowed her head, her hair falling over her face, but it was too late. Jacob saw her guilt at what she couldn't tell him.

"NO," he roared flying to his feet, the chair toppling beside him. "NO!"

"I'll be safe -"

"You'll be dead -"

"It's the only way -"

"You won't be my Bella! And there are lots of other ways! Staying alive for one! _Not_ being with him!"

She snapped her gaze to his agonized face. She wanted to hug him, but she refrained staying in her seat. She didn't want to make the situation worse than it was as his body was shaking giving into convulsions. "My Jake..."

"Not if you die..."

"None of you will have to worry about me. I'll -"

"You're NOT doing this as a favor to us!"

"Jake -"

Jacob kicked the chair out of his way and ran out, not hearing the rest of her plea. He slammed the door of the kitchen, shattering the glass.

Her Jacob...

She barely noticed the tears that cascaded as she took a small brush and a dustbin from under the counter. She carefully knelt and began sweeping the shards. Every glimmer she hoped would be overshadowed by his return, but the sun caught them surely reflecting in the drops flowing from her eyes.

She thought she had all of the pieces until she laid a hand down as leverage and a sharp prick stung her palm. Right there was small trickle of blood, a glimmering of a sliver.

Something hissed in the doorway to the living room. She whipped around and there was Jasper, his eyes pitch black, no sense or reason in them.

Despite the glass she curled her hand into a fist in attempt to disguise the smell and sight, but it pushed the piece in deeper and the blood ran through her fingers. She smelled the copper and rust and she became dizzy. She hoped against hope that she would black out, then she would feel nothing and neither would he.

"Jasper," she whispered, but she knew that he wasn't there. The thirst had taken him, and it would take her.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Grand Theft Auto

Jasper stepped towards her. It was slow calculating steps; unlike the pounce he made at her birthday. Part of him was holding himself back but his thirst was too much. He wouldn't - couldn't stop.

She shut her eyes preparing for her flesh to be ripped from the bone but what she heard was very different. The sound of two crashing boulders more boisterous in the small kitchen, snarling and growling, and involuntarily her eyes sprung open.

A huge wolf stood on top of Jasper, his jaw clamped on the back of his neck snarling furiously. Jasper, on his stomach in the huge dint on the floor was reaching towards her with claw-like hands, his black eyes wide and unseeing as he writhed and snapped. He looked like a monster and yet she couldn't stop panicking at the sight of the wolf's teeth on his neck.

"Don't hurt him," she screamed at Jacob. One movement, one snap of his teeth, and he would have Jasper's head.

His eyes roved over sarcastically and he let go of his prey for a second to nod his giant head to the door she was using for support. Jasper craned his head back to bite at his legs but all he got was air. Jacob didn't even seemed bothered by it, he was enjoying it, his worst enemy beneath his paws.

She shook her head and he nodded again more temperamental. He wanted her to go and she could see why as he was as big as a horse in her kitchen, the edges of the counters were cracked and crumbled, the table and chairs broken beyond repair but she couldn't make herself move, not until she knew that Jasper wasn't going to be hurt.

"Don't kill him. Don't hurt him."

He jerked his head in a "no."

She stood shakily and stumbled outside to the cool air. She could taste the ions on her tongue but she could still smell the blood and playing over and over in her mind was her Jacob on her Jasper. She saw Jacob's kind eyes. She would've never left if she hadn't been positive Jasper would be okay. Her friend wouldn't hurt him.

Against her better judgment she checked her new injury wishing more that the rest of the Cullen's had come, or at least Carlisle. He was the best doctor she ever had and she was sick of having to attend to her injuries. She should've been used to it, nearly a professional, but she would never be a match to the vampire doctor.

The cut was small and dark but it bled profusely, the red liquid dripping off her fingers making a trail like gory bread crumbs on the driveway.

Then she fainted there in front of her truck.

* * *

"How did this happen, Jake," Billy's voice asked sounding as if she were under water hearing it.

"One of the bloodsuckers has been staying with her," he answered sourly.

"The Cullen boy is back?"

"No, his brother. The thin blond one."

"I heard he couldn't control himself well."

"Apparently not! Dad," he groaned, "it took all of my control not to kill him. He was going to murder her! I had every right to rip his limbs. It's my duty! It's what I'm made for!"

"But you love Bella, son. You wouldn't do anything to hurt her. He's her friend," Billy told him with unconcealed repulsion.

"If I hadn't been there..."

"But you were."

"I almost wasn't. We got into a fight and I left her. If I hadn't saw him coming up to the door... If I hadn't saw how black his eyes were... I think he followed me. Damn fu -"

"She'll be okay. Bella's going to be fine."

She moved her fingertips feeling something rough beneath her, the coarse criss-crosses of the wool of the couch she knew to be Jacob's. She opened her eyes observing the high ceiling, the old television to her right, the plain white walls. She was in Jacob's house. Where was Jasper?

"Bella! You're awake!"

Jacob appeared over her worry creasing the frown he wore. Billy wheeled up to him with a relieved and kind smile but it did nothing to mask how he was feeling about the Cullens, about what happened to her.

"We've been worried about you, kid," Billy said.

"Where's Jasper?"

Jacob snapped his teeth together in obvious irritation and Billy cut across whatever it was he was about to hiss.

"He almost killed you. Jacob brought you here." He was obviously expect praise.

"My dad?"

"Charlie's out fishing. I told him I didn't feel well. An old man needs his rest after all."

Bella shook her head. Her dad didn't know she was there. That was a good thing, and now that was out of the way she merely wanted to know where Jasper was, if he was okay, but it hurt. She put a hand to her forehead and felt a thick bandage.

"You hit your head on the concrete."

"Oh..." She wouldn't be deterred easily. "Where's Jasper?"

"I ran the leech off," Jacob spat.

Bella shot up but dizziness overpowered her, her friend swimming sickeningly, and he gently pushed on her shoulder laying her back down. "Where's Jasper," she pleaded. "Where is he? What did you do, Jake?"

He growled. "I did as you said, I didn't hurt him. He went hunting."

"I have to go home. He'll be angry with himself." Just like on her birthday. Except this time, Edward and Alice weren't there to placate him.

"You aren't going anywhere," he said, clearly an order. "You won't see him again."

"What?!"

"You're staying here. Let him go back to his wife, it's where he belongs. You belong here. With me."

"Jake..."

"This conversation's over." He rose and banged his way out the front door. It sent a lightening pain through her temple. He was certainly walking out on her a lot lately.

Billy sighed deeply staring after his son. "He worries over you. You shouldn't push him."

She was instantly mad at the aged man. "I'm not pushing him! This is none of his business!"

"What you need to understand, Bella, is that when we love someone, every choice they make is our business. If you do what he fears most, he'll do anything and everything to stop you. It's all out of love."

She felt her head throb. "I don't want to hurt him, Billy..."

"Then don't." He wheeled back and moved around the couch and went out of sight in the hallway going to what was supposedly his room leaving her alone on the couch. What was it about the Black's that liked to leave her? What about the Cullen's? They liked to do it too.

Jasper... Jasper was the one who didn't want to leave, he came back. He fought against Edward's decision. He loved her and wanted to be happy.

And it was easy for Billy to say. He didn't have to make the choice between a treaty that could start a war between the family she had and the family she longed to join. He didn't have the choice between betraying the man she once loved and choosing the man she loved more than life itself. She had no choice but to choose Jasper, not because she didn't have options, she had many of them, but because he was her life. Without him nothing seemed to be worth living. She survived Edward, but she wouldn't survive him.

Life was complicated. Love was in itself. Friendships, family, obligations. Everything she thought she was or who she was to be was complex. She found reason and she wasn't going to let him go.

She wouldn't let them control her. She made her decision and it was time to go through with it.

As quietly and as cautious as she could be she rolled off the couch. She lightly stepped to the door. There beside it was a hook (a fishing hook it looked like) filled with keys. She recognized Jacob's, and she took them.

She opened the door and left it slightly ajar as to not make any more noise than she had to. She moved off the porch wincing with every creak it made.

There in the dirty driveway was Jacob's Volkswagen Rabbit. She felt bad about stealing it, but he wasn't making it simple for her. He wasn't even allowing her a choice (if there was one). She would leave it for him at the invisible line he always talked about. She would be fair about it.

She opened the door. She would have to make noise, but Billy wouldn't be quick enough to come after her not like he could do anything about it and Jacob was likely in his wolf form running through the woods to burn off steam.

She pushed the keys in the ignition and turned them. The car roared to life under her and quickly she pulled the stick out of drive and flew away from the small wooden house.

"I'm sorry, Jake," she said as if he could hear. "I have to do this." She pushed harder on the gas pedal, the dirt of the reservation clouding around her.

She drove and drove, her knuckles becoming ghostly white as she gripped the wheel. She was _stealing_ from her best friend but she couldn't stop. If she did she would turn around and go back and admit what she did and he would truly never let her leave then. What she was doing was for the best of all of them.

She slowed to a halt at the borderline and shut off the engine. She had just unbuckled her seat belt when her door flew opened. She yelped but suppressed it hastily when she saw Jasper's poignant face peering in. His eyes were bright gold.

"I'm sorry..."

"Jasper," she gasped, "it's you."

"I'm sorry, if your werewolf wasn't there -"

"It's okay, Jasper, I'm fine."

His features contorted as if he was in pain by her sympathy. It reminded her terribly of Edward, a flash of his wince in her mind, but Jasper wasn't leaving, and the pain was as gone as soon as it came, as if he knew what she was thinking. He held out his hand.

She took it never wanting to let go, if she did he might be gone for good. She couldn't endure that. It would be too much. But how could she think that he would leave then? No, that wasn't like Jasper.

He helped her out of the car like a good southern gentleman and shut the door. She knew when they crossed the line because he stopped a ways from the Rabbit pulling her into his embrace tenderly as though she were made of fine china. He breathed in her hair and choked on what would have been a sob but it was broken and unfinished.

"Bella, my Bella dear." His tone rang of regret and sadness.

There was still doubt in her mind. "Jasper, please don't. Don't. Don't go. Don't leave me." _Don't do this._

He laughed hollowly. "I'm not leaving you, but that doesn't erase the repentance I owe you... My remorse. I very nearly lost you to my thirst. It was too close."

She was relieved by his assurance. "It isn't your fault -"

"But it is. I should be stronger than this. You're Edward's singer and he would've been able to help you instead of lunging at you. I should've been able to do what he would have. I'm too much of a danger to you."

It sounded like a goodbye. It was something she didn't want. She wasn't going to let him find a way out of this. Not for her. Not when she had finally found him. "Jasper, don't -"

He pushed her from himself to suitably look at her. "We're not waiting. We're doing this now. We're going to New York today."

"New York?"

"Carlisle and Esme are there. We'll go there so he can change you. This will all be over soon."

"What about Charlie?"

"Write him a note. This isn't going to happen again. I won't let it. I won't allow a next time. The wolf won't be there -"

"Yes, I will."

Between the trees Bella looked for Jacob whom she knew was the owner of that rough, gravely voice. She should've known that he would come for her, that he would find them, and there he was revealing himself out of the dense woods, fury waving off of him that even she could feel it.

Jasper didn't appear at all startled. Of course, he must've heard or sensed that he was there the whole time. Why he let Jacob hear them she didn't know, but she no sooner than asked herself that than she received her answer.

"Will you keep her father away from the house for a week?" Jasper wanted a favor.

"Why should I help you leech?"

"Because this is for Bella."

"Is it?" he came up to them his nose wrinkled against the scent just like Jasper's was doing. "I was under the impression that you wanted an easy way out so you can be with your brother's ex-girlfriend. Whoa, this is screwed up. A family of bloodsuckers fighting over a human while the werewolves of the town try and keep her safe. Yeah, very screwed up..."

Jasper hissed and Jacob growled and Bella stepped forward to break it up before it began. Jasper reached out the distance between them, but she ignored it focused on keeping the situation from escalating.

"Stop it," Bella begged. "Jake, quit it. You don't know the situation. This isn't just about making it easy for him. Lets face it, I'm no good at being human. I'm clumsy, I'm constantly in danger - even without vampires hunting me!"

"Bella," he heaved a sigh not looking away from Jasper, "I told you, we'll take care of the bloodsucker, there is no reason for you to join them if you can't beat them. That's what we're here for."

"I want this, Jake."

"No you don't."

"Don't tell me what I don't want! I want him!"

Jacob finally glared at her. "Lets put aside that he's your ex-boyfriend's brother, your friend's husband -"

"Ex, we divorced months ago."

Jake went on like he hadn't heard him. "You know what'll happen if they change you. You won't be able to be my friend. You won't have a life to live anymore. You won't be able to see Charlie."

She blanched at the thought of never seeing her father, but he was in enough danger as a human. It would be better for him too if she was a vampire. "And your brothers will hunt me."

His face darkened. "I won't let that happen."

"Jake…"

He screwed up his face. "Don't say it."

"I have to go."

"No you don't."

"Jake, please, keep Charlie safe."

He groaned and nodded still not looking at her. There was a haunted look about him as if he would try to find a way to stop her renovations. "Fine, Bells, whatever you want." He dipped his hands into the pocket of his cut-off jeans and withdrew a copy of the key she had in the car of the Rabbit. "This time you don't have to steal it. You can keep it as long as you need, this is a backup. I know how you lose your keys." He glowered at Jasper. "If you kill her -"

"Then I'll die as well."

"Don't do so too soon. I'd like to have the chance to kill you myself and when I say kill, I mean that you won't be walking around breathing as though you weren't _dead_."

Jasper smirked but then froze and so did Jacob. It was like their ears were perked up listening for something that was too soft for her human ears, but she quieted too, straining to hear what she couldn't.

"Get her out of here," Jacob demanded, face excited shoving the keys in his pocket and running into the woods at full speed.

Before she could ask, or even blink, Jasper had her in his arms bridal style and was running in the woods, just far in enough that no one could see them, leaving behind the car and Jacob.

Her mind reeled. It barely happened in thirty seconds. What didn't she hear? Where was Jacob going? Where was Jasper taking her?

"What's happening, what's going on," she asked him, his face a mask of concentration.

"Victoria's here."

Bella looked at the trees in smears of colors regardless that she wouldn't be able to see Victoria before she hit.

"The dog is dealing with her."

Jacob. Her Jacob. Bitter sweet, innocent, and lively. He had a heart beat, he had a blood running through his veins. He was breakable, it was possible. "No! Not Jacob!" She struggled in his hold but he only constricted her against his chest.

"He can take care of himself, Bella. It's us that we need to worry about. The sooner we get out of here the sooner it'll be over, remember?"

"Where are we going?"

"To our old house. I'll make a couple of calls and then we'll be gone."

"But Jake!" She couldn't get over him in the woods fighting something so much stronger than himself. Or so it would've seemed, the wolves were strong and as he told her before it was what they were made for. It didn't negate that it was her best friend out there, that he could get hurt. One of her worst nightmares...

"You don't need to worry, love. We'll be all right."

"And Jacob?"

"He'll be fine," he reassured in monotone.

Bella wished she was as positive as him, because right then all she was picturing was a pale woman with flying orange trendles and eyes that glowed crimson with the blood of her victims. And Jake, warm, and loving, her sunshine, was fighting her.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Empty

There was an unconscious part of Bella that stayed away from the Cullen's old home. She was afraid that it would hurt to see that it was empty. The final nail in the coffin. She also feared that the house wouldn't be there at all, as if it was a part of a miraculous dream. She knew it wasn't then as she was in the arms of her vampire, but would the emptiness hurt?

The house sat away from the road hidden completely by the protective trees, the lane leading up to it overridden by ferns. They escalated up a barely noticeable hill as she wondered when they were going to be there. Nearly every time she went to the house she wondered, but it was always there, waiting, and it did then for her and Jasper.

The faded white house stood several stories tall with a wrap-around porch. It was as beautiful as when she last saw it, but it held a sadness. The Cullen's weren't there... Of course they weren't.

Jasper didn't hesitate, he went right on inside as though he'd never moved out. The large undecorated room sent a pang through her chest where the hole would've been if he wasn't there, holding her together.

With more care than was necessary he sat her on the floor in front of the wall of glass. She curled up and set her gaze on the darkening forest and the river running soothingly over countless pebbles. She tried not thinking of the fight but that relentless image didn't go, instead it burned behind her lids.

"Hello Alice... Yes, we're all right. The dog is taking care of it."

She was thankful that he talked at a normal human level compared to the humming he could've been doing. It went to show that he wasn't trying to hide anything from her. He was treating her like they were a team, that they were in this together. It was good, because they were. For life, and in her case for death.

"I need to get us out of here. Yes, I do, but I'm not leaving her, that's not an option... I plan on taking the first flight to New York. Carlisle can change her..."

Silence, then -

"You can't see us? The dog isn't anywhere near! How?"

She was glad she wasn't standing. Her legs wouldn't likely to support her. She broke from the forest to stare at Jasper, his tiny silver cell phone to his ear. They were both waiting with bated breath.

"That pup," he growled. "That brainless mongrel!"

As Alice talked he cooled watching Bella meaningfully. It was like he was looking through a one-way glass not aware that she could see him. It was hardly a prize, he was guarding his emotions like a mask over his visage. Then irritation crossed.

"You're suggesting we sit here like sitting ducks? Yeah... You have a point... I will, I promise." He clicked his cell closed.

"What did you promise?"

He smiled. "That I'll keep you safe."

She felt a true sense of reprieve and he bent to a knee close to her.

"Alice, loves you. We all do. Nothing has or will happen to change that."

"I didn't think it would end up this way..." She truly didn't. From the moment she accepted what Edward was she had this image of what her death would be like. He would change her because he wanted to keep her. She would be beautiful and strong and finally worthy of him. They would be happy together without worries of her dying because she would already be dead.

That image had changed so much... When he left she was left with a bleak outlook of her future. In fact, she didn't even imagine what it would be like.

Then Jasper came, and it turned everything upside down. Her future was no longer something horrid to face, it was bright and full of meaning. She loved Edward, she always would, but Jasper... She kept herself from him for her family for the people she loved, and it didn't matter. He was with her, he felt the same way.

Of course, this was why she was being hunted. Victoria wouldn't understand her change of heart and though Alice appeared to, who was to say for the rest of them? Nothing in her life could be that perfect as a family understanding her choice for another son, a brother.

"They understand." He sat down his fingers running circles on her lower back sending her comforting vibes.

"They? Carlisle and Esme know too?"

"Alice told them. They love you, they love me and they all want us to be happy. Take it from someone that knows – whose only known happiness for a short time in his long life. Happiness is what matters. That and love."

"Edward," she asked skeptically.

"He'll be another story, but we'll cross that bridge when we have to." He raked his fingers through her hair. "Listen, Bella dear, we're going to be staying here. We don't know what the dog will do. Alice is thinking that maybe he'll find us. And... You won't rest until you know if he's okay."

The picture of Victoria and Jacob flashed through her mind again, always Victoria with the upper hand. She groaned and leaned her forehead on her knees. It was agony waiting. Not knowing. She wished... She wished that Jacob had help...

"Bella, please, you're hurting... Tell me what I can do."

"I just don't want him out there alone..."

"I'm sure he has help. He has a whole pack."

"What if it's not enough?"

"Of course it is..."

She looked up to him sadly not knowing what to say. Saying that she was scared for them seemed redundant. He could feel that. She at long last understood why him and Alice were such a quiet couple.

He kissed her lips so fast that she sat still for a moment to ascertain whether it was part of her runaway imagination. He stood and kissed the top her head, she knew that for certain.

"I'll go help them."

Her heart retracted painfully. That wasn't what she meant! "No, Jasper -"

"The first place she'll go is your house, you'll be safe here -"

"I'm not worried for myself -"

"I figured as much, but I'll be fine."

He couldn't leave. She couldn't let him. "Please, don't leave me here by myself."

He took a strand of her dark hair sliding it through his pale fingers. "I'll be back before you can miss me."

"Too late," she said. And it really was. It was too late for her, too late for him, too late for Edward. The fairytale she secretly been hoping for turned into a late-afternoon science-fiction drama of vampires and werewolves and a girl who was caught in the middle unable to do anything but wait to see who came home.

_Forget the late-afternoon sci-fi drama_, she thought suddenly... It was a nightmare, a nightmare that she forgotten to scream about at night but was coming true then. It was very much a slap in the face.

"It's never too late," he said feeling the blunt of her emotions. "Edward won't be able to stay away for long, he'll come back for you. You have a choice. I know you don't think you do, but it's true."

She grazed his flawless face. How could he think that? He couldn't be replaced. Not for anyone. "I love you, Jasper. It's you I want now. Forever. I don't have a choice, not while you want me."

"I'll always want you. I'll never leave, I'll do the best by you that I can, and right now that's making sure that your pup doesn't get himself killed by playing dog. I wouldn't leave you at all if it wasn't for your best interest. I'll be back, Bella dear. You won't lose me in any way."

She understood what he was saying though it wasn't outright. He was saying that he wouldn't be like Edward. He not only loved her enough to protect her, but loved her enough to change her, to keep her, and he loved her enough to protect her best friend, his mortal enemy. She suddenly felt she didn't deserve him. Even as a vampire there was no way she could be good enough for him.

"It's you that is better than me, don't forget that, love." He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, and then finally her lips. They were all quick kisses, too quick for a human, but she felt each and every one. When she opened her eyes to smile at him she was staring at the door. She hadn't heard him leave...

She scooted herself into a corner, watching the windows and doors carefully. Her teeth began chattering, her whole body shaking like Jacob's, and she realized that she was afraid - not for herself, because whatever was coming for her it was bound to be a quick death - but for Jacob and Jasper…

Ignorance was quickly nearing the top of her list that she'd come to fear. Ignorance whether the people most important in her life were going to survive protecting her.

If only she was a vampire, then she would have nothing to fear, only the fear of killing innocents as a wild newborn, and Jasper wouldn't let that happen. None of the Cullen's would.

Therefore, once she began to relax, her fear, her heartbeat, her breath escalated as she saw something orange fly past the window.

* * *

A/N: If any of you are curious, when Jasper said "yes, I do, but I'm not leaving her, that's not an option..." What Alice had asked was simply if he wanted to fight.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Like A Doll

That was it... She was going to die... Wasn't it terrible, that she had come so close to living forever and she was going to die before she got the chance to be changed? And yet, she wasn't bitter. She had no reason to worry. If Victoria was with her then she wasn't with Jasper and Jacob. They were safe, they had to be. What happened to her was of no importance. A useless, weak, human. Without her, the battle would be over. She could do this for all of them. She would die.

Bella stood to her feet, her shaking subsiding with determination. If she was going to die, she was not going to do so by cowering in a corner. She hadn't with James, she wouldn't then.

There were no sounds to suggest that Victoria was coming in for her. Her footsteps were silent. As persuaded as she was earlier she had become a firm believer that nothing could be worse than not knowing. She couldn't guess when Victoria would stop playing with her food and come in to finish her off. The quicker the better.

She just wanted it all over with, the misery and the heartbreak. The only thing that was breaking hear heart then was realizing that its last beats wasn't going to let her live eternity with Jasper. No, he would be left behind as she lied rotting away in the Fork's cemetery. But he would be alive (as alive as a vampire can be) and that was fine with her, Jasper wasn't one to die. But she was. She was human.

There was a soft but distinctive knock on the door, yet she stayed rooted in the corner. It was back to being a horror film and she saw what happened when the well-intentioned girl opened the door despite the creepy music and the audience screaming "no" at her. She would be smart. She would stay. Victoria wouldn't get the best out of her.

"Oh, human girl," the child-like voice sung. "I can smell you."

The door crashed in, blown off its hinges in scraps of wood and metal. Victoria's scarlet eyes glowed, prowling like the hungry cat she was. One step, two steps, she came closer and closer, slower than human pace. That's how Bella knew that her death would be slow.

"Where's your mate," she questioned with glee stopping a few feet from her.

What was the point of lying? "Gone."

"Aw, that's a shame." She didn't try covering her happiness. "It's for the best. You see, you're human, you're food, you don't belong in our world."

"You were human too."

"A long time ago, but your Edward doesn't love you enough to change you. It was only a matter of time he found you a waste of his. He must not care for you at all. He's not here to save you. I'll deal with him later..."

That was when the cave in her chest ripped apart, and she wrapped an arm over her stomach in attempt to hold herself in one being, a buried habit. Edward might not love her - she was nearly certain that he didn't - but the vision of him in danger because of her... It was tearing her apart just like it did all those months ago when the Cullen's risked themselves for her (no matter what Jasper and Alice said about them being strong).

"I wonder what his brother will do when you're gone. Maybe I'll make it easier on him and rip him to pieces too."

She knew... The horror of it, she knew about Jasper! "Don't touch him," she hissed through her teeth unexpectedly. She almost sounded like a vampire herself, just without the beautiful bell-tone. She was angry and she almost came out of her corner, but to do what she had no idea.

Victoria's hellish face lit up like a government explosion gone wrong. "Fascinating... You are an odd human. Don't learn your lesson the first time?"

"I'm stubborn," she asserted.

A large shadow came over the room then, the room not just dark in her fear but in veracity where the sun had sunk in the hill beyond. She hadn't noticed.

Victoria didn't look away. "Welcome, dog. Glad you could join us. You too, Jasper."  
Crouching in defense, Jasper emerged into her sights, Jacob followed at his side in his wolf form, fur trembling from the growl erupting from him. They came in as a team.

"It took you," she noted of their tardiness.

Jasper's glare didn't leave the sadistic vampire but he spoke to Bella. "I'm sorry. She eluded us and I had trouble escaping the pack. They've grown in numbers. The mongrel here had to intervene."

Bella didn't nod or give any inclination that she heard. She couldn't move and not because she was being brave but because she was stuck there despite that she knew her chances of dying were lowered. It didn't make her feel better because she was going to see her nightmare come true. She was going to watch them fight for her.

Swiftly Victoria turned to them. She was done teasing and acting as though she could take them. The real fight was going to begin.

She bolted left, Jasper blocking her easily. She went right and was blocked again this time by Jacob, his head low, teeth bared.

Next she faked left, faked right, and ran to the door, Jasper following each movement until he was running behind her to prevent her escape.

It was all a blur to Bella, but she forced herself to concentrate on the moving figures so she could see who would win. Who would lose...

Jasper skidded grabbing Victoria's arm and with a grating noise he bit into it, severing it from her like a toy doll. He was enraged, scary, she'd never seen him like that, not even on her birthday. There was no thirst, just pure fury.

Jacob leapt behind them and sunk his teeth into her calf tugging back and throwing it aside. Like a doll…

There were horrified screams, growls, and snarls. It rung five times louder in Bella's ears and she expected cops to barge in about the noise, for them to be killed too, but no one was going to come and she was glad. She couldn't handle more murder even though this was what she wanted, for Victoria to be gone.

One by one she was extracted, Jasper snapping her neck off, the head rolling to Bella's feet. Blackness washed over her, drowning her. Again.

Why did she have to be so human?

* * *

Voices... Far away voices... She was still drowning, haven't recurred from the depths of her ocean. She wasn't even certain what she was hearing was real. She couldn't feel, couldn't see. Only hear the voices she loved.

"This is all your fault, leech," Jacob said angrily. "She wouldn't be in this position if you and your family had taken care of the red-head when she started hunting."

"I know," Jasper responded calmly. "Thank you."

"Excuse me?"

"Thank you for loving her as much as you do. I know your feelings are that of a protective brother."

"We're not going to be friends, bloodsucker."

Jasper guffawed. "Wouldn't think it, pup."

His voice became softer and regretful. "But... Thank you, for loving her too... You're the only one who came to see her. Since you've came back, the few times I've seen her she's seemed more like the old Bella."

"I love her differently." It was as much a statement of fact as a warning.

"I can tell by the way you look at her."

"I'll take good care of her."

"You better. If you hurt her I won't stop my pack next time. We'll set fire to you. We all love her."

"As do we."

"Not your brother."

"Including my brother. He left for her safety is all."

Silence.

"You have more to say?"

"A question... Why did you come?"

He sighed. "Bella and I have fought our feelings for each other since we met. Alice had a vision of us... It was a matter of time... Every day of eternity I'll feel remorse for attacking her, all those close calls. But I can't be without her. That's why she needs to be changed. She wants it - she's ready for it, and so am I. You don't have to like me, Jacob but trust her. I won't hurt her, I want to be sure of that and I'll need your help."

"How?"

"Help me get her to New York."

"For Bella?"

"Of course."

"In that case, I'll keep Charlie and my pack at bay. Work fast though leech and be grateful that I don't kill you for this."

"We'll go when she wakes. I called Carlisle, he said her mind needed to protect itself."

"There's something more… This isn't over, is it?"

"We burned Victoria's body. It's over."

"Not for you two."

"No... It's not. Carlisle said that Edward was there and with his inconvenient mind-reading he knows. He's going to try to stop us for the reason that he wants Bella back. He's going to be tougher than Victoria. When we get to New York is when the real battle begins."

"You're not going to give in, are you?"

"No."

"Good. I hate all of you, but I hate you the least."

He laughed deeply. "Why is that?"

"Because Jasper, when your brother broke her, you healed her. I'm grateful to you," he sounded disgusted as he said it.

"As I am to you."

"Why?"

"Because you loved her enough to keep her safe in the time it took me to return."

"I didn't do it for you."

"No, you did it for her, I know."

"Of course you do, you know everything, don't you?."

"I'm not Edward. I can only feel your emotions I don't know the reasons behind them."

"You take guesses."

"Live with him long enough and you'll learn to read people just as well."

"I'll pass."

Was it all a dream? Once more she fell under. Maybe she wouldn't resurface.

* * *

A/N: I gave the reasons on my profile but there you will find my Twitter page and again the LJ page where you'll find featured stories, story reviews, and hopefully polls and contests soon.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Breathing Out, Breathing In

For five minutes from one o'clock when she woke Bella sat straight up in her bed. She watched Jasper move about the room distorted in a haze packing her things in her suitcase. Though it didn't hurt, Bella rubbed her head, it was purely because she didn't know what to think.

There was a dream. It was like a word at the tip of her tongue. It was so close but she couldn't recall it. It was infuriating.

"Are you all right," Jasper asked pausing on his way to her closet.

She nodded and he returned to his packing.

She should have been packing herself or at any rate in the bathroom dressing for the day. She had the notion that they were going to New York and that he cleared up everything for them to do so. Her heart was fluttering at the belief that she would soon be like him. Irrevocably an equal.

"Jasper," she finally said and he faced her, her faded green shirt in his hands. She felt embarrassed about him handling her clothing, it all being so ragged and different from Alice's brand-named ones. "Are we going to New York?"

He folded her shirt neatly and laid it in the suitcase. He sat across from her in an identical position, his knees to his chest, his chin to his knees. "Yes."

"There's more to it, isn't there?" She only remembered that she had a dream... But was it a dream? Either way it was telling her that something was incomplete.

He smiled. "Everything will be fine, Bella. Jacob's fixing the damage in the kitchen, but told Charlie that he came by here to see you off because you were visiting Alice last minute and that he saw roaches. He's having the place exterminated and Charlie is staying with Billy. That'll keep him out of here until it is remodeled."

"Shouldn't I say goodbye to him?" She didn't know if she could or if she wanted to. It would be hard. It was better if Charlie believe anything else other than she never came back because she didn't want to. It wasn't exactly true and it would hurt him too much. She couldn't bear that. She wanted him to know that she was happy.

"I forged a letter. Jacob said Charlie was very understanding, that maybe it's what you need." His grin was sad.

He thought of everything... "There's more?"

He nodded infinitesimally. "There is, but before I tell you I want to do something." He moved into a crouch and crawled closer to her. "Have you feel something is more like it."

"What is it?"

"My love for you. I try to reign in my emotions so other's won't be bothered, but... I want you to feel this before we go..." He crawled forward between her legs and placed his hands tenderly in her hair. He pulled her to him, his cool forehead to hers, and as she breathed out he breathed her in. "Ready, Bella dear?"

She mentally shook her mind clear, becoming befuddled by his closeness in a way that she hadn't ever been before. The sweet smell of him... Could she smell better to him as so many vampires have told her? "Yes..."

She compared every feeling that Jasper gave to a wave, or at the very least a calm passing. What he did to her then could never be compared to them. It was a tsunami, a greater storm than she had ever experienced and it swept her away. It took her breath from her lungs, and he gasped but she barely heard it. The love was making her heart burst.

Every cheesy thing she thought or felt wasn't anymore. They weren't cheesy, they were real and those who thought so were the ones who hadn't felt love before.

What was more wasn't just the emotion that Jasper was giving her but her own love for him that was bigger than anything she had felt before. She thought it would kill her, it was too much. It intensified between them, building until his lips were on hers like an outlet flowing between them.

He was pushing her back against the wall, and his hands gripped her arms holding them afloat. It was air. He was her air, her sun, her world. He was her everything, and as cheesy as that may have sounded earlier it couldn't have been more true.

The love was reined in, and Jasper released her, his eyes never leaving hers.

She whimpered from the loss of his cold lips and suddenly started crying. Large uncontrollable tears were wetting her lips. She tasted salt.

He touched her cheek in sorrow. "I'm sorry, that was a bad idea."

She shook her head. It was the best idea. "No, thank you. It's just..."

"What is it, love?"

"It was overwhelming," she laughed.

He snickered but that abruptly stopped when looked down. He hissed in a breath as if he received a shock of something horrid. "We're going to change you." His fingers brushed her arms.

She glanced down and saw the fresh black bruises in the shape of his hands. "Accident," she declared strongly.

"Always an accident..."

Now that his lips weren't on hers, or anywhere near for that matter, she could think clearly. "What were you going to tell me, Jasper?"

His gorgeous face twisted in pain. "Edward knows. Everything. He's there waiting for us. He wants you back, Bella."

She flinched in waiting for the tearing of her chest to start at the thought of seeing him again, of him wanting her even if it sounded far fetched, but the tearing didn't come. Instead she tried to smooth the pain out of Jasper's forehead and lips with her fingertips. He moved just enough to break the contact, putting distance between them.

"I love _you_, Jasper."

"It might not be enough."

"How can it not be? Alice -"

"Alice's vision changes based on choices, you know that," he spat starkly, the pain not leaving him, it hurting her, the tightness in her chest overwhelming her as much as his emotion of love.

"I choose you."

He softened. "You don't have to decide now."

"I decided when you came back, before I even knew there was a choice."

"I know that you're sure, I can feel it."

"Then -"

"Things can change. You can look at him and change your mind." He took her hands with more gentleness than necessary. "Bella, one of the facets about being human is being able to alter and grow. You can grow with Edward. You can't grow with me, I'm not as strong as him - we've proven that. I've almost killed you twice within a year – within six months, and I want to kill you now. I want it so bad..." He swallowed thickly.

She was undisturbed about that as she always was. She knew what he was and she knew what she wanted to be. To be like him so she could be with him in every way. "What are you getting at?"

"That you're only human. And no matter what you choose for whatever reason, I will never stop loving you. I'll always be here. You know how much I love you now."

"Jasper -"

"If you want me, then tell me after you see Edward."

Angry tears seared her. "You _feel_ everything I do! How come you can't feel this? I need you to feel this more than anything! How can you doubt me?!"

"I don't doubt you, Bella, but I know how it works. You've been away from Edward, perhaps..." He shook his head. "Feelings can change, Bella, no matter how strong they are at that time -"

"And you may change your mind about me -"

"I told you, dear, vampires don't change."

She threw up her hands. "So what are you saying? That I changed my mind once between brothers, what's one more time?"

"That's -"

"Jasper, I love you! I know how much you love me and you know how much I love you. You can't alter that, and if it worries you, change me now!"

Suddenly he leapt off the bed backing from her until he was flat against the wall opposite of her. He hissed, tensed. "Bella," he sighed softly, "I can't do that! Don't ask that of me, I'll suck you dry!"

"I trust you."

He slackened his stance but didn't move. "That's how I know we're the best for each other. You trust me when no one else does and I see you the way the rest don't. You'd make a powerful vampire, Bella. You don't fit into this world, you belong in ours. But you're still human... Nothing has to be decided at this moment. Remember, it's whatever you want. But I need to know that no feelings will stir when you see him. I need to know that you won't regret leaving him."

"Jasper -" she started on his silly resolution but he interceded her.

"Humor me, dear."

She nodded, folded her arms, and leaned onto the wall. She would humor him, but her decision wouldn't falter. She _would _become a vampire and she _would _go through eternity with him. Nothing would stop her, not even Edward.

It was time that she was let to make her own choices.

* * *

A/N: Thank you to everyone who is "following" me on Twitter, it's much easier to give updates through there. Thanks also goes to those that check out my web page and has friended me. You all are amazing!


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Welcome Home

Bella didn't ask where Jasper got the car. It was sleek, black and fast. That was all she knew about it, that and it was capable of reaching two-hundred miles-per-hour within seconds, to which he used instantly.

She tried not to look out the window, his driving making her anxious. All of the vampires drove fast. She couldn't fathom why they would ever be in a hurry, they had forever. Yet the trees flew past too fast, becoming too soon into tall buildings of the city, the sun too low in the early morning.

Jasper had called Alice before they left to ask of the weather conditions and she assured him that it would be reasonably cloudy. He took the earliest flight out as possible to be safe but only because Alice asked him too. She was losing faith in her visions.

"Bella, please compose yourself, you're making me uneasy."

She looked down to her shaking leg, but it was of course her emotions that he was referring to. "I'm sorry, Jasper. I'm trying to... Not think." Not think about what was coming, not think about Edward. It was harder than it was when he left her, because she was no longer his, she belonged to someone else entirely. How difficult would he make it all be?

"May I calm you?"

"When have you ever needed to ask?"

"Whenever you're anxious you get very touchy. Remember in the hotel room?"

She did remember... When she cracked under the pressure of her anxiety of her family he tried to put her to sleep. She got angry and stormed off to the bedroom. She felt bad about that later.

"I'm sorry."

He smirked not taking his eyes off the road, not like he truly needed to keep them on it but it helped eased her. "Don't be."

"Can you put me to sleep?"

"Whatever you'd like Bella dear."

Suddenly lethargic she reached down to the lever between the bottom of the seat and the door and pushed her seat down horizontally. She fell asleep the moment she let her body relax but she felt a coldness on her hand, it sweeping between her fingers in a soft grip.

When Jasper gently prodded her awake she looked at the red numbers of the dashboard clock. Normally it would take a good thirty minutes to reach the airport but they were there in fifteen minutes according to it. She sighed but didn't say a word to reprimand him.

With his touch she was wide awake and with the few bags they brought they went through the large white building, the security, the adults and children, the suitcases and chatter, skipping past the escalators as they were walking three times faster than it.

Jasper checked the ever-moving flight announcements above a long desk that a few employees sat behind with fake smiles. They moved on to sit in the far corner in comfortably curved seats a good ways from others, those in the business suits with small laptops typing away.

"We have half an hour," he told her.

She stared out the window which - like in the Cullen's house - was the wall itself. She watched as the planes took off. All of the noises that if she pushed out of her initial thoughts became what would sound like the waves when someone was not paying attention, to be silenced.

"How do you stand it," she asked him quietly. Even if someone was sitting next to her they wouldn't hear, but he would. "How can you stand all the emotions?" She wouldn't say it, but she wondered the same about Edward, how he stood hearing everyone's thoughts all day long. She had assumed that it was like the loud planes, eventually you learned to tune it out, it got to be normal.

"Years and years of training."

That was it. The conversation ended there and they didn't speak for the rest of the half hour. They didn't even speak on the plane. It was something that Bella loved about Jasper. There was no need to fill the silence with conversation. They were at relaxed with sitting in their seats, her near the window watching the concrete ground slowly move out from beneath them.

As they flew higher and higher into the sky Jasper pulled out a stick of gum from his jacket pocket. He handed it to her.

She thanked him and unwrapped the pink stick. Soon her ears began popping as they soared into the clouds.

Within their own thoughts, Bella pertaining to the underlining worry of the reaction of what they were about to face, they held hands on the armrest between them. His leather glove kept her from getting too cold. It wasn't a necessary worry like it was when he laid in the bed with her but he said that her hand may very well get frostbite if she didn't regularly let go and flex it to move the blood along. The problem with that was that she didn't like to let go of him. It was a comfort beyond his ability that she liked to feel him.

The clouds stretched on all sides of them, the sun over the sky painting them a lovely golden hue. She noted that the color matched Jasper's eyes perfectly.

He rubbed his thumb over hers as he leaned back pretending he were sleeping. She spat her gum out into the silver wrapper and stuck it into her pocket to throw away later and she laid her head on his marble shoulder. Within moments she really did fall asleep (without his help), her head on his marble shoulder.

When the plane landed Jasper kissed her head the sudden ice of his lips waking her. She stretched her stiff bones and smiled at him. He smiled back at her but it was strained. As he kissed her lips a bit harder than he ever had she got the feeling that he thought it may be the last time he would be able to do it. There was that urgency in it that she was able to detect. She didn't like it. She never had. She recalled Edward doing the same.

Once they stepped out of the terminal Bella stumbled. Not just because she was naturally clumsy but because there outside of the metal detectors was their family. Carlisle holding Esme's hand, pain etched into the perfect faces that had nothing to do with their thirst. Alice, her bright gold eyes on Edward reading every emotion, her gaze floating to someplace in the future. Bella however met Edward's stare, her grasp tightening on Jasper. She knew he was paying special attention to every sensation that was passing through her and she had no reason to worry about that because all she felt was extreme happiness at seeing their family.

Edward's expression was heartbreaking but it didn't cause her to feel badly, not in the way it should have if she was in love with him, and so not to concern Jasper with it she looked past him to the others. Alice had turned ecstatic beaming right at them.

In a matter of a second when they passed through the detectors Esme embraced her, dry sobbing into her hair as though she waited years to do so.

"Bella, our Bella!"

She patted her back her eyes prickling with the elation that she was flooding her. Her family... she was finally with them and suddenly Edward wasn't of importance. She reveled in the fact that they didn't hate her, and as soon as that revelation and joy came it leveled, her eyes drying, she stopped choking on her tears as Carlisle patted her shoulder.

"Stop that Jasper, it won't diffuse me."

Bella and Esme broke apart everyone watching Edward glower at Jasper, a fury she hadn't seen in so long emanating from him, even his velvet voice had become rough.

"It wasn't for you, it was for Bella."

"I'm okay, Jasper," she assured.

Edward's ragged breath slowed but that wasn't necessarily a good thing. "We'll talk about this at home."

"Oh Edward," Alice exclaimed maddeningly. She shoved him out of her way as she hugged Bella. She was amazingly vibrant even in the worst circumstances, just as a pixie should be. "Welcome home, Bella."

She broke through Jasper's manipulations and hanged onto her best girl friend. "Alice -"

"Shhh, Bella," she hushed grabbing her shoulders to push her back into her direct line of sight. "I knew. I always knew this was how it was supposed to be. I'm not hurt and you shouldn't be either. You have a great man."

Her throat clamped but she gasped through her heavy tears. "I love you, Alice."

"I love you too, you silly human. Lets go home." She slung her arm over her shoulder and led the way towards the luggage circling on the belt.

No one spoke during their departure to the parking lot, nor when they climbed inside the extravagant red car waiting for them. It was like the game adults played with their children, the game of silence, all constructed so the parents wouldn't get headache's. The silence they were playing were for a whole different incentive. It was so that no one should fight, namely Edward and Jasper.

Jasper and Alice stayed firmly beside her, Edward forced into driving a neon green car in the slot next to them.

Only one sentence was said during the ride.

Esme in the passenger seat glanced to them in the review mirror and gave a brief smile. "That went better than I thought." Her attempt at cheerfulness was sad.

Bella caught Alice's reaction. Short-lived though her daze was, when she focused on the headrest in front of her she frowned. That answered everything.

The real battle was about to begin. She would wish for Victoria when she stood against Edward.


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

The Real Battle

The house was an hour away. They drove halfway into an old city to a long road of ancient-looking ones to another road that led up to an even older house. It was a three story Victorian style with brown shingles, part of the roof gone, caved in during a past storm. The driveway overrun with weeds.

"Esme has done wonders. It was a real project when we bought it," Carlisle said fondly shutting off the engine.

Bella smiled politely. "It's charming."

"Thank you," Esme said twisting in her seat to see her head on. She glimpsed out the back window and Bella heard the crunching of gravel under Edward's tires. "We've missed you."

She bit her lip holding the soft place in her heart that was throbbing with affection. "I've missed you too."

Edward passed them, not looking only motioning for them to follow him inside.

"Here we go," said Carlisle.

"He won't fight Jasper, will he," she asked Alice.

She shook her head. "He's changing his mind too fast."

They stepped out into the cool air sweeping her overly heated cheeks. It occurred to her then how painful it must have been for Jasper being with her all day long in enclosed spaces. Twilight was setting in and she felt a small flicker of hope. It was the easiest time of day for them.

They were formed into a line, the entry hallway small, the smell of must tickling her nose. Carlisle turned at the end where an elegant staircase was. He nodded to them and him and Esme went up.

Alice stepped left to a door, her hand on the knob. "Good luck," she whispered bouncing to kiss Bella's nose and in turn Jasper's cheek. She flashed her teeth and left behind the door.

Jasper placed his palm flat on her lower back. "If he was going to kill me she wouldn't have left us alone." He sounded amused but it did nothing to comfort her.

Coaxed by his light prompting she walked with him into the room of their right, leaving the door open behind them. There was no use in closing it as the others would hear everything. She preferred it that way, just in case...

The room was empty, not one piece of furniture to occupy it. She was bewildered by this until Jasper told her then.

"Edward lost his temper. Destroyed everything yesterday."

Edward hissed and she noticed that he was in the dark standing at the far end looking out of a corner window, his forearm against the window pane. His hands were in fists.

"It's true," Jasper defended.

"You swore to me, Jasper, you said you wouldn't go near her. Remember telling me she was mine?"

"You know I remember. We don't forget."

"Thought that something was wrong with your memory, or perhaps it's only your loyalty."

He stepped forward, the calm slipping replaced by rage. Bella resisted the urge to step with him. One more degree of the borrowed anger and she would see red. Lying beneath that was worry. Jasper never let loose of his control over his emotions.

"My loyalty remains."

Edward spun so fast that she missed it. A cruel, twisted smile stretched his lips. "Then why, my dear brother, are you with the girl I love?"

"Alice saw this and you knew -"

"You promised," he roared, shaking the foundation, Bella flinching. She never saw Edward so angry, so out of control. It frightened her.

"You left her," Jasper yelled back, not nearly as loud. "What claim do you have now to place your wrath on us? Look at yourself, Edward, and look at her! You're scaring her!"

Edward glimpsed in her direction, a flicker in his eyes. "Then you calm down and pass that to her. It's obvious you can change emotions as you've changed hers for you -"

"I didn't do that!"

He ignored him. "You were aware that I left for her safety _only_! I would have never left if I'd known she would be in much more danger. I never would have thought my own brother would've interceded. You are more danger to her than I am!"

He nodded not arguing with that logic. "You're right. That's why Carlisle -"

"Carlisle won't change her, I won't let him! Think about what you're doing, Jasper. You're taking away her mortality!"

"She wants this, Edward," he said softly but with increasing strength.

"She doesn't know what she wants! She has no idea what she's getting into!"  
With Jasper's fury and her own that was escalating, it had gone too far. Bella marched towards him, the toes of their shoes meeting. She glared up at him and saw his visage soften and the resentment that was building collapsed. Her tone was as soft but rougher than Jasper's.

"Don't tell me what I want, Edward."

The way he was gazing at her made her uncertain if he heard her, but of course he did, he heard everything she said, she could never speak low enough for him _not_ to hear. He simply memorized her for an immeasurable space of time, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Leisurely his knuckles brushed her jaw and hair.

She was torn between hugging him or walking away. Instead she settled for standing there.

Whatever she feared it would be like - seeing him again - she was wrong. There was no pain, no longing, there was nothing, and it wasn't at the direction of Jasper. He wanted to know as much as she did, probably more, and she felt a light but not insignificant amount of pleasure of it.

Edward closed his eyes and laid his head on hers. He shook with the tears he could never shed. "You don't love me."

His pain cut her deeply. There was no denying that she cared for him. "I do."

"You love Jasper more." It was a statement, a fact.

"I love you... Like a brother."

He glided from her to the wall. "I love you more than that."

She felt her eyes widen in disbelief. "You didn't want me anymore! You're the one that left!"

He recoiled as if she slapped him, not like it would've had a lot of impact. "I did it for your safety. You're not safe with us, Bella, you're human."

"Not for much longer!"

"I won't let him end your life!"

Three seconds. The rest happened so quickly that Bella's brain was slow to take it in. Edward vanished and behind her there was a loud crash of broken wood and cracking thunder.

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a petite body flying at her swinging her into cold arms, a breeze pushing on her as she was taken from the room, upstairs and into another.

She was set on a large foam mattress in the midst of expensive clothes and magazines things bright and cheerful. She waited expectantly for her heart and stomach to return.

Alice examined her for any injuries she might have received during her escape. After sweeping her arms, legs, and neck she sat cross-legged in front of her.

Barely a minute had passed.

"What happened," she asked though what she really wanted to know was why.

Alice understood her meaning. "Jasper must've thought something, it was a last-second decision."

"Is he - are they okay?"

"I heard Carlisle separated them. Had to, Edward wasn't going to stop..."

Ice slid down her spine. Edward was nearly impossible to defeat, he saw every one of his opponents moves before they made them. Jasper was the best fighter otherwise, but he didn't stand a chance against him.

She could imagine the scene as if she saw it. Edward lunging at Jasper, pinning him to the wall and snapping at him. Jasper -

"Jasper -"

"Is fine. He's more worried about you I'm sure."

She shook her head in despair letting it fall in her hands. She wasn't the one he should've been worrying about. Edward was going after him, not her. "It's all my fault. I'm hurting your family."

Irritated, Alice sighed. "How many times do I have to tell you, Bella? Our family is strong. You are our family, you can't break us. Edward will move on from this."

"Have you seen that?"

"No, his future is a little cloudy at the moment..." She looked annoyed, "but I know my brother. He loves you and he'll learn to love you like Emmett and I do. We want you and Jasper to be happy. Don't let Edward sway you."

She touched her shoulder and Bella raised her head. She couldn't shake the feeling of guilt and dread from her.

"You do want this, don't you? Jasper? You do want him?"

"More than anything."

"Then let us deal with Edward. This is all going to end now, no one is going to stop us. Concentrate on your -"

"Renovations?"

She beamed. "Yes, your renovations. Carlisle wants to talk with you about them but that's not necessary, I can tell you what he's going to say. He's going to give you morphine. He thinks that might dull the pain and he wants to caution you that when you wake up, your eyes will be red for the first couple of months as your body burns off your blood. We all don't expect you to remember, but no one knows how you'll turn out. You've been an odd one from the start." She laughed lightly.

Bella laughed with her but it came out edgy, a good deal of her mind was downstairs with Jasper and Edward. She would deal with what she could while Carlisle dealt with them. "Red eyes for months?!"

"Three to be sure. It's not that bad. You'll be living forever, a few months is nothing."

She nodded. "True..." A few months of red eyes, an eternity of unquenchable thirst, it was all a good trade for Jasper.

"It's good to have you home, Bella."

She checked the strange room she was in, a room she never saw before with a friend she hadn't seen in too long. Not many would consider themselves home. Bella did. "It's good to be home."

"Jasper" Alice said and Bella looked to their side where he stood.

Months ago his abrupt appearance would've scared her. Overtime it seemed natural. It felt odd and inappropriate when they tried to act human for her sake. It was no more than an insult.

"Bella," he breathed, his agonized eyes only on her. "I am sorry. If I'd known -"

"Jasper," Alice whined. "She's okay. No harm done. There wasn't any danger to her, only to you."

"No harm done," he repeated numbly not so much as glimpsing to her. "Edward hates me."

She flitted next to him. "He doesn't hate you. He hates what you did. If it wasn't for my visions this all would've blindsided us. Yes, he might have killed you but he should've prepared to lose her. I warned him. We all did."

In the silence that followed was the tinkling of ivory keys from downstairs. Sickly sweet and strong they punched her in the gut. Edward was playing her lullaby.

"I can give him a fair fight," Alice mumbled furiously strolling out. Alice could never walk out of a room in an angry march but that was a minor detail in her alarming expression.

Jasper watched Bella carefully, monitoring her emotions, but there was nothing wrong. She only felt remorse. For Edward.

"Bella -"

"For him," she answered automatically. "I feel bad for him. I know how I felt when he left..." She bit her lip and was careful not to draw blood. "What were you thinking that made him so angry?"

He flinched. "A memory. I was thinking of that time I tried to kill you, of Jacob stopping me. Of what would've happened if the dog hadn't been eavesdropping. It was stupid on my part. I should have been keeping a better check of my emotions." He moved and she couldn't help but gaze at him as he stood in front of the window to her left.

The darkness outside gleaming his reflection as clear as a dark mirror. She observed how tall and lean he was, how he carried the air of a soldier - the duty that never fully left him in his vampire existence.

She came up beside him feeling instantly inadequate, painfully plain. It was a mistake as he was then staring sadly and a little frustrated at her in the mirror. She blushed and averted him.

Jasper came behind her taking her chin tenderly and facing it at their reflection. It was an ache. Even as a vampire how could she compare to him?

"Bella, look at us."

"I am."

"See us," he corrected. "You don't see it, but I'm covered in scars. Your human eyes are too weak to distinguish the flaws."

Scars or not she couldn't see him being less astounding. What flaws could there be? "It doesn't matter to me."

"You are beautiful. In every way. Trust me, Bella dear, you'll always outshine me."

"I doubt that."

"I don't and if you still have doubts I suggest you ask Alice. She'll tell you."

"What are you trying to say, Jasper?"

"That you're exquisite. I'm imperfect. I'll love you no matter what you choose -"

"Don't you see us?"

He came up short. "Yes, I see us."

She reiterated what he said. "You're exquisite. I'm imperfect. I'll love you no matter what you choose."

"Bella -"

"I made my choice. Make yours. Do you want me?" Her heart sped up at the thought that he might say no, that the whole thing was a mistake. What would she do then? Go back to Forks? Stay with her father? Would it be too painful to go there, would she go to Jacksonville to live with her mother? Maybe she wouldn't do either... She wouldn't survive another heartbreak, she would surely die from it.

He smiled and bent his head to her neck. He ran his cool lips over the thin layer of skin. He ran his lips over her ear, and murmured in declaration. "Always. There was never a choice."


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

The Pieces

Bella slept in Alice's bed. It was the only one in the house and no one had any use for it so it was obvious why it was there, the reason she knew days ago. Had it only been days?

Alice knew she was coming. What a burden it had to be, to see the ever-changing future. If Bella had known what was to be... Would her choices be the same?

Alice, Carlisle and Esme left the night before to go hunting for the next two days. That left her alone with her boyfriend and ex, not a combination that any girl would want, especially those dating angry vampires.

Jasper didn't leave her side through-out the night. He was in the exact same position he was when she fell asleep. His back was to the headboard, his arms over his chest, his white undershirt mapping out every facet of him. He was gazing down at her like he'd never get bored and she felt the same way gazing back at him.

"Good morning," he greeted.

She grinned. "Good morning."

"What would you like for breakfast?"

"Do you have anything?"

He looked repentant. "No but I'm willing to go out and get you anything you want. Name it."

She contemplated and shrugged. "Eggs would be nice."

"Eggs it is then. Would you like to come along or are you okay with staying with Edward?"

"You'd trust us?"

"I have no reason not to. I still trust Edward and I have no reason not to trust you."

She nodded thoughtfully not at all surprised. She remembered last night, the fight, the conversation, Jasper singing old songs of his era in her ear. "I need to speak with Edward alone."

He pecked the top of her head. "Then you shall. How long should I take?"

She chuckled. "As long as you see fit, Mr. Hale. Don't keep me waiting too long."

"Okay, Ms. Swan. An hour it is." He kissed her lips and got off the bed.

She got up herself and went into the adjoining bathroom. She showered and dressed (a black skirt and light green top, Alice's only decent clothes by Bella's standards) and started to make her way downstairs. She stopped at the top upon hearing Jasper and Edward's voices. She assumed Jasper would have already left, but it was likely he was waiting for her to have a full hour with Edward.

"I didn't betray you," Jasper said. "Neither did she."

Or she could've been wrong...

"I'd like to place all the blame on you, but truth is she _is_ a magnet for danger. Only she would find a way into another monster's arms and be lucky enough to land in the same family."

"Lucky?"

"It's better than her ending up with that mongrel Alice told me about."

Jasper was quiet. Then, "you still don't accept this."

"It isn't easy," he spat. "She's everything to me."

"She's everything to me too."

"But you can live knowing that she was meant for you. I waited over a hundred years for her. For _her_. You had Alice..."

"I love Alice but we both knew that it was a matter of time until I found Bella."

"But you had her. You had someone. Alice can't even see my future now..."

Alice couldn't see his future? At all? She said it was cloudy... What did that mean? Was Alice's visions fading? Jasper had told her she couldn't see her own. Bella held her breath and as silently as she could she sat on the top step.

"She can't see you because you can't get over Bella. You're not moving on. There has to be change. I understand your grief but you've always said that Bella's happiness comes first. She's happy now and will continue to be when she's a vampire. If you can't be happy for us, do it for her."

"Do you know what you're getting into?"

"Yes."

"No, no you don't. It's not easy being with a human. You will suffer every second you're with her."

"I know that! I've been with her!"

"And you almost killed her!" His tone softened either by the hurt those words brought his brother or by other reasons. "Think about her humanity, Jasper, what you'll be taking from her. She'll never be able to see her parents again, her friends, she won't graduate or get married or have children. You'll take everything she has or could have from her."

Jasper's voice came just as soft. "She knows that she can't see her parents or friends, but she'll have Carlisle and Esme and us. She will graduate, she'll do so countless times. And yes, she can't bear children - I wish I could give her that but that's not possible and she can't miss what she's never had. And I will marry her, Edward. I'll be her husband."

"You're okay justifying it to yourself?"

"What is so wrong with being with her forever when it's what she wants too?"

"Picture her with gray hair rocking her grandchildren with her brown eyes to sleep. Picture her on her fiftith birthday _looking_ like she was fifty. Changing and aging and happy."

"That's your problem, brother, you're picturing her older and happy. She's getting older, but who are you to say she'll be happy?"

"You promised her breakfast, Jasper, and I'm sure that she's tired of waiting on the stairs."

Bella smiled to herself. There was no way for a human to eavesdrop on them.

"Actually she's quite amused."

Edward huffed and she imagined him rolling his eyes.

Jasper appeared through the doorway Alice had gone into last night. He winked at her, his chest covered by the gray sweatshirt he put on. "An hour," he promised before he left.

Bella took her sweet time going down the stairs. She watched her feet meet each step with precision. She felt a little silly going that slow as if she were the prized guest at a ball, but she wanted to hold it off a tad longer.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs she hesitantly peered into the room where Jasper came from. What she saw froze her in her spot.

Pieces of wood were scattered over the room, strings, and keys. The piano she never saw but only heard was destroyed. Edward, forlorn was sitting the midst of the tragedy.

She sat across from him. "I'm sorry for your loss." Even as she said it she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

He didn't look up, he was fingering an ivory key. "Alice always had the talent of hitting the soft spots... When I heard you were coming I bought it. I wanted to play for you - your lullaby. I hoped it would make you remember."

"I haven't forgotten."

"Is it because I left, Bella?"

She scowled. "You think that little of me? That I would move on because he was there when I was vulnerable?"

He cringed at the word "vulnerable," but shook his head twirling the key faster. "I had to ask."

"I'm so sorry, Edward, I am." She couldn't say it enough.

"Why? You're happy."

"That doesn't mean I want to hurt you," she said indignitly. "Please, can't I be your sister?" She realized as she said it how ridiculous it sounded, asking her ex to be her brother.

"You will be my sister, but that doesn't mean it's how I'll see you. To me, you'll always be my Bella."

"You're not going to give us a hard time?"

Decisively he looked at her, but she instantly wished he hadn't. The pain was almost too much to bear. He flicked the key aside and reached for her hands. He held them, steadily turning them into ice. Then he spoke.

"Do I have a choice? Alice will destroy me if I tried to stop you."

"I do love you." It felt important to persist that fact.

He smiled sadly. "I know... I love you too..."

"There's something else?"

Laughing, he said, "are you a mind reader now too?"

"I can just tell." By the way he didn't budge from his position, not losing that intense interest.

"Yes, there is something else..." He gripped her more firmly but she knew how gentle and careful he was being. He told her once that one twitch of the finger and he could kill her. "When the others come home I'm going to go to Africa. I'll stay there with Emmett and Rosalie."

"No, you don't have to do that," she said hurriedly, the thought of breaking up the Cullen's sending her in a panic. "You don't have to go, please stay."

He chuckled again rolling his eyes. "Bella, that's not it. I can't be here when you go through what you refer to as your renovations. I can't do it," his eyes bore into hers, she noted that they were pitch black. "It'll kill me."

Without looking from her he picked up a broken piece of a key the jagged edge like that of a glass. He pressed it in her palm. "I'll wait in the wings if you ever change your mind. You have someplace to go to, don't be afraid. Ever."

She clutched the key tightly. "How can I be afraid? I have a family of vampires watching me."

"And the hearts of two."

"I wasn't going to mention that..."

He pressed his lips to her forehead and they stayed like that, time slipping past them. Through his lips he told of his sorrows, and through her hands she told of her apologies. They went back and forth telling of their woes and worries just like her and Jasper could do only her and Jasper did so in a more practical way (through his ability).

Then he released her standing up. "He's back. I'll go hunting now, I won't be too far."

"Will I see you again?"

He brushed her hair fondly. "I said goodbye last time and I will say goodbye this time. For good."

She furrowed her brows, the bubbling panic rising again.

"To you, the human Bella."

Grinning she let out a puff of relief. Her roller coaster emotions were getting the best of her. "Okay, that's good."

Bowing deeply he kissed the top of her head. "What I wouldn't give to read your mind once."

"You wouldn't like what you'd hear."

"I'm sure of it." He straightened. "Hello, Jasper."

Bella turned and indeed saw Jasper in the doorway holding up a white bag that was gradually wafting delicious smells towards her. "Hello. You okay, Bella dear?"

Every small emotion... He was reading her worry. "I'm fine, Jasper. We were just talking."

"I know," he told her trustingly but his glare didn't leave Edward and Edward's eyes didn't leave her.

"One more thing, there's something you should know, Bella, something Alice saw yesterday."

She held her breath. It wasn't the best option for her as she frequently forgot to breathe in their presence, but her gut was screaming that it wasn't good news. "What is it?"

"Carlisle won't change you. Jasper will."

Jasper... Changing her? Why didn't Alice tell her? Unless she was asleep, they thought it would be best to wait, but did they think it was the best time then? The pieces clicked themselves together and she understood. "That's why you didn't go with them, you wanted to stay nearby to be sure that Jasper wouldn't do it today!" The key she clutched dug into her hand.

Jasper pitched the sack to the floor and came up to her, kneeling gracefully to his knee. "I asked him, love. Alice didn't see the whole vision and I've told you, one last minute decision and I could kill you."

She groaned. He was starting to sound like Edward, talking about her death at his hands, like she would really care! It was a much better way to die than the others she nearly did die from, most of them not involving the Cullen's at all but her own clumsiness. But she mentally corrected herself. He wasn't sounding like Edward. Edward would never consider changing her. Jasper would - he wanted to, but he was doing it the safe way.

"You won't kill me," she said.

"You don't know that, Bella," he responded, his tone harsh.

"Alice does."

"Things change and she knows that."

Wasn't that ever the truth? Not just that Alice knew, but that she did. Her whole life changed when she moved from Arizona. Things were never the same after and she wouldn't trade a thing. Jasper was her life, even if that meant it would be risking hers. She wanted him. Forever.

Jasper sat down, his arm against hers, the sheath of his sweatshirt keeping her from getting chilled. "Do you want me to be the one that changes you?"

Edward growled but he was paid no mind. Bella answered, "I trust you to do it."

"I'm aware that you do, but isn't it enough that Carlisle will change you?"

"It's enough that you want me forever."

Jasper kissed her, her insides taking flight as she pressed herself to him. Then a crash parted them, and Bella looking to the spot where Edward had been standing. He wasn't there.

Jasper didn't budge. "Esme isn't going to like that. He broke her favorite vase." He sounded like he wanted to laugh but he touched their cheeks together and whispered in her ear. "Don't feel bad. Everything will be okay."

She rested on him burying her face into his neck. His hard flesh felt wonderful on her. He calmed the fire within her. They were perfect, why didn't they see it before? Oh yeah, that was right.. They were in love with other vampires.

"Jasper?"

"Yes?"

"I'm hungry."

He laughed deeply. "I'm sorry, I forgot. We'll have to eat on the floor. Edward broke Esme's table too."

"He's good at that." He was really good at breaking things. The furniture, her heart, and possibly their friendship. Out of the blue it all seemed like a mistake - her falling in love with Jasper. could it be worth it if she tore up their family. Was she worth it?"

"Bella, dear, what was it that I told you when James was hunting you?"

She pulled out of her thoughts to recall the past when she was in the hotel with Jasper and Alice. "Um, that I was worrying about all the wrong things."

"And?"

"I don't know... I blocked out most of those memories..." The pain and the wondering had nearly driven her to insanity but not with concern for herself but for her new family.

"I told you that you're worth it. I meant it, and it's true today as it was then and will ever be."

"Once Carlisle comes you'll have him change me?"

"You have my word."


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Gone

It was raining, just like it did so often in Forks. The wind howled and whistled, the skies a dark gray. Bella stared out the bedroom window at it. She watched it trail its way down the pane, the droplets forming together and moving faster and faster until they were gone from sight.

Downstairs she heard the door swing shut. She couldn't see through the light storm but Edward had been running back and forth from the house to the car packing his belongings, which mostly contained clothing and C.D's.

It was the next day and tomorrow the others (excluding Emmett and Rose) would be home. Edward was leaving for a place nearby. It was close, a few miles but it certainly wasn't under the same roof. As Carlisle was coming home there was no need for him to stay, it was only for that one day the cause of Alice's vision after all. It was never because he wanted to be there. Could she blame him?

Last night at supper Edward and Jasper sat with her. They talked while she ate. It was a friendly conversation of cougars versus lions (as a meal) when Jasper took her hand.

It was a simple gestures, it was natural. Neither one of them thought much about it, that is until Edward excused himself. The next time she saw him was when her and Jasper were leaving the empty room and he was carrying suitcases down. Jasper tried to speak to him but he kept moving and Bella couldn't stand to watch. She wouldn't watch him leave her a second time.

"Should I bring Jasper here?"

She didn't make a move to see him. In her mind's eye she could see him, he was standing directly behind her, his brows raised suggestively.

"Bella?"

"No, I'm fine."

"I came to say goodbye. I'll stay close until Carlisle returns, then I'll leave like planned."

"Oh..." Anger coursed through her. How dare he? How dare he leave her again? How dare he still love her and still leave! Damn him... Stupid unreliable vampire.

"Bella, will you look at me?"

Slowly she did. He stood like she imagined. His bronze hair dripping, he didn't mind the puddle forming at his feet. He was unaware of anything but her, and she couldn't help but be aware of the green sweater clinging to him.

"Tell me you don't want me."

Caught off-guard by such a request she left her mouth agape, no sound coming. She croaked, "why?"

"I can't walk out without being absolutely sure that you've made your decision, one that's not based off of my foolishness. If you want, I'll stay with you. I'll never leave you." He stepped forward once and he was too close, his head bent low enough that his hair dripped on hers. She could feel the ice slide over her skull wetting the strands.

"Jasper's not a convenience."

"If this is about your desire to end your life then we can discuss it. If it's truly what you want then you can have it. You can whatever it is you want, if it's in my power to give it to you."

She pushed her backside to the window. Anything for breathable space and to keep herself from hitting him which would only hurt her in the process. "I want Jasper."

"Tell me what I can do."

"You can stay here and be happy for us. You can stay while I go through my renovations."

He growled, his chest rumbling. He walked to the bed his hands in fists at his sides.

As he took his time she inhaled greedily but was filled with his sweet scent. In surprise she nearly choked on it. She didn't like the way he smelled like Jasper, the way they all smelled the same.

"Why have you always asked for the things I can't give you?"

"Why can't you do this?"

He spun on her and she was once more pinned to the window. "Why can't you love me and not my brother? You don't love me anymore but I haven't stopped loving you. I can't get over you as easily. Sometimes, Bella, we don't have choices. If I knew that when I left you none of this would be happening."

She remembered the attraction she felt for Jasper when she saw him. "It would be."

His intensity failed into agony that pierced her. "I never had a chance, did I?"

"No..." How effortless that was to say was terrible..

He cupped her cheek. "I'll be waiting in the wings. I love you, Bella, my…" He forced out the last idiom. "Sister."

She smiled, letting out the breath she had been holding since he touched her. "Thank you, brother."

He laughed, it strangling in his throat. "See me out to the car?"

"Sure, sure" she agreed using the way Jacob agreed to things. Jacob... Too bad he wasn't there with her, too bad he couldn't be, she had a feeling that she would want him there. She wanted someone to stay if only to show that they loved her enough to do so.

She followed Edward out of her room and down the stairs, scanning all the while for Jasper. He must've been out, giving them their goodbye. She felt a warm gratitude for him.

In the entrance hall Edward turned and kissed her forehead, a very brotherly action that she internally gave him credit for.

"When I come back we'll go hunting together."

"For lions," she grinned.

"Whatever you like," he said, and he didn't even look back one time as he ducked inside of the convertible and drove away, splashing mud in his wake.

Without conscious thought of what she was doing she went outside. The rain was chilling cold but she didn't mind it. Her clothes became heavier, her hair sticking to the sides of her face, mud was encasing itself in her shoes where it would undoubtedly stay.

Edward's car was gone. Edward was gone. He said he loved her but all the things she needed he couldn't give. He wanted to give her pricey gifts but none of the emotional ones, none of the things that would cement them together.

He didn't see her the way Jasper did. Jasper saw her potential as a vampire and he realized that they could never be unless she was one. It wasn't an option for her to stay human, not because of the danger but because they loved each other that much.

She'd never been more grateful that he wasn't there. She didn't want him to feel the longing she had for Edward then, the fear he wouldn't be able to decipher because it wasn't just a longing for Edward, it was a longing for his friendship which she dearly missed and the fear that she would rip them apart at the seams.

The rain stormed on, large drops beating on every bit of her frozen skin. She was violently shivering her teeth chatting terribly but she didn't register it. She sneezed and coughed and it wracked her brain but she stayed in the brew until she numbly felt arms sweeping her up. They weren't the arms she'd expected. They weren't cold, they were warm, and she huddled in the dull warmth. She heard Jasper speaking to her.

"He's not your fault, Bella."

She nodded but didn't believe.

"You're a strange human, why would you risk getting ill?"

She couldn't answer that one silently. Instead she let herself fall into her exhaustion, his voice - not his words - replaying in her mind like a lullaby. One that couldn't be composed.

* * *

A/N: There are two more chapters left on Bella's POV. The second and last part will be in Jasper's.


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Documentary

Bella laid in bed in her blue boxers and camisole and fifty boxes of tissues piled beside her in a replica of a fort. Her nose tickled, her eyes stung and her head felt like it was the one that was stuffed with tissues. She sneezed and coughed, her throat sore like she had swallowed nails for breakfast instead of the one muffin Jasper brought her.

Under Jasper's watchful eye she drunk lots of fluids, rested, and took her antibiotics that lined her nightstand. It had been two days and she was already encountering cabin fever. Jasper kept her company during her waking hours, but even when she slept she had the distinct feeling he was there.

A small part of her was embarrassed to have him see her like she was, hair in a tangled mess and her nose red and runny, especially how he constantly looked perfect, like a God or a high ranking Angel.

"There's no need to be self-conscious, Bella dear," Jasper said coming in and sliding in the bed with her. He sat across the collection of used tissues that she hastily gathered up and dumped into the trash bin.

"I was human too."

"You barely remember it, all of your human memories are fuzzy." She recalled when she asked Edward about his past life in more detail and that was the response she had received.

"That's not the point."

"I look terrible."

"That's a lie. You look exquisite."

"Then it's true when they say love is blind."

"My sight is much better than yours, darling." He winked so fast she barely caught it. "Carlisle called. They'll be gone for a week. There was a mistake, the site they visited was too scarce, they're relocating to a more populated area."

"It took them that long," she asked dubiously.

"Alice has been focusing too much on why she can't see her future." He flashed a smile. "And because she found some great stores nearby."

She laughed. Alice the fashion cognizant. "Perhaps when they get back I'll be better. Or you could just bite me now and cure me forever." She meant it as a joke but he frowned.

"I want to talk with you about that."

She heaved a sigh. She knew it was coming, ever since that conversation between him and Edward. The subject of her mortality. She was beginning to hate it, but perhaps with Jasper it wouldn't be so bad. He _wanted_ her to be a vampire.

"Bella, you know that I want you. I want you more than I've ever wanted anything in my existence. But please, think about what you'd be giving up, not what you'd be gaining."

"I have thought about it." She thought about is so much her head would surely explode.

He went on as though he didn't hear her. "Eventually, in your life you'll lose your parents and your friends and I believe you prepared yourself for that as much as you can. But you won't ever be able to bear children, that won't be possible for you once you're turned and I can't give that to you."

It made sudden sense then, why Jasper wanted to talk with her about her renovations. He was worried about the possibility that she wanted children. It almost made her laugh it was so absurd. "I won't have children with anyone but you, and I know that it can't happen with us."

"What if you want them someday?"

"We can do like Esme did and adopt."

"It won't be the same," he said warningly.

"You said it to Edward, I can't miss what I never had. I want _you_, and if there are prices to pay I'll pay them. I don't mind giving this up, not for you."

"You shouldn't have to give up anything. I should be able to do this for you."

She laughed. "If things happened the way they were supposed to you would have truly died in the Civil War or sometime afterwards and wouldn't be here with me. I'm glad that it all worked out the way it did, even if you can't give us children. Jasper, children aren't more important to me than you."

He closed the space between them his lips on hers. He pressed just hard enough to cause her teeth to imprint indentions behind her lips and yet it wasn't close enough. She pressed harder as he ran his fingers through her hair.

Then she leapt back her hands flying over her mouth and nose as she sneezed. A tissue waved in front of her. She snatched it and blew her nose into it.

"Bella dear, I told you not to be embarrassed."

She glowered, "do you want to bite me now?"

He looked down ashamed, "in many ways my dear."

"There's only one that matters to me."

He smiled despite himself and moved off the bed. "I'll be back, I have a surprise for you."

She groaned, "it's not more antibiotics, is it?"

He beamed lighting up the room. "No, but if you like you can keep guessing."

"Let me see."

In one second he moved out of the room and flew in, but had his arms laden with a small television. He set it on the floor and cleared off the antibiotics sweeping the bottles in the drawer. He placed it in front of the bed lifting the TV like a feather on top of it. He left again and came back with an armful of DVDs dropping them at her feet.

"Did you rent out the whole store," she asked jesting.

"Only the good ones," he said picking out one and holding it out to her the cover a painting of a gory battle. "The best Civil War documentary there is."

"Then put it in." As he did so she asked, "do you miss your human life?"

"I don't remember much of it. I recall climbing trees, my mother singing to me, my father teaching me to chop wood. They're all too fuzzy and I don't bother to think on it often. I have a new life, a new family. My human self is a different person in a whole other time."

Worry settled in the pit of her stomach. A worry she hadn't considered when thinking about becoming one of the Cullen's, or more specifically, the Hale's. "Do you think I'll feel that way?"

He lounged at her side his head propped on the same pillow she was using, the control in his hand. He clicked the documentary on and while the screen was black he said, "it won't be that way for you. Relive your childhood memories enough and they'll stay with you as clearly as if your eyes aren't clouded. I was foolish enough that I didn't do that." He kissed her cheek trailing his lips to her ear the smooth cool glass sending shivers up her spine but not because of the cold. "I'll help you remember," he breathed.

Content with his promise she rested her head on his shoulder and he wrapped a blanket around her body shielding it from his and enfolded her in his arms.

She stayed awake for the whole documentary not wanting to miss a minute of Jasper's history. It was something that not many girlfriends were able to go through, learning of their soul mate's history in documentaries of a war over a hundred years ago. However, once the ending credits were on the screen she gave in and dozed off.

It was an odd dream… Jasper in his Confederate uniform, his topaz eyes baby blue. He kissed her goodbye at a door of a wooden house, her dressed in her jeans and jersey, out of place in his world. She watched him depart down a dirt path into nothingness. She wondered and worried if he would come back for her, her heart sinking and she felt like crying.

As she closed the door and turned into the near pitch-black room there was Jasper again, in his jeans and sweater, pale with golden eyes and though she should've been scared she was pleased that she hadn't lost the man - vampire she knew.

On his way she knew that the Confederate soldier was not coming back. She knew that the man would become the astounding creature in front of her, and that was okay. She would become whatever she had to in order to stay with him.

He took her into his arms and sung a lullaby of rainy days and solace.

* * *

A/N: In case anyone is wondering, the lullaby that Jasper sung is a special one. It's "A Lullaby for a Stormy Night" sung by Vienna Teng. A great thanks to my dear friend Kamarile for introducing me to this song that I haven't heard in so long.


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Dreams or Reality

Three days. The large trash can was nearly full of tissues, the fort diminishing at an astonishing rate. She slept when she could but woke up too frequently to get much rest. She had taken a permanent residence in the bedroom. Cabin fever was not so bad when she was nearly hallucinating things not sure if she was dreaming anymore.

Worse was that she was coughing so much that her throat was lightly bleeding. She begged Jasper to stay away but he had to torture himself by sitting with her. He said that it wasn't as bad as she thought, that the saliva diluted the blood, not making it as strong, but Bella knew this was a lie.

"Have Edward watch me," she rasped on the fourth day. There was nothing more she hated than to be babysat but she had good reason for wanting Edward, it was a good compromise. "This won't bother him, not like it's bothering you."

"It's not bothering me."

"Please, Jasper."

"No, Bella."

She groaned the vibration tickling her throat and she began another coughing fit, her body wracking painfully. She grabbed a tissue to cover her mouth and nose. When she looked there on the white were tiny specks of red. She crumpled it quickly and threw it into the trash bin, tensing when she heard Jasper hiss.

"Jasper," she called warily.

"Fine," he whispered, "relax."

She fell onto the pillows piled around her gasping for the breath she lost. Tiny needles poked their way into her lungs and she spluttered. She feared the copper taste would never leave her tongue.

"Please," he begged in return, "let me take you to the hospital."

She shook her head, the room spinning sickeningly and she shut her eyes swallowing the bile that burned her. "I don't like hospitals. I can wait for Carlisle."

"This is necessary. You're getting worse."

"They'll be here soon."

He growled, "you're impossible."

"Mmhm," she mumbled. She was impossible. She had more than a cold, she felt like she was dying. Everything took ten times the energy it should. She could've been dying, but she didn't want to linger on that thought in case emotions came with it and Jasper felt whatever it was that she would feel when she was dying the way she was. He would ask questions and she wouldn't refuse him.

_Only a little longer_ she told herself everyday. It was her mantra through the sickness. If she could last a little longer until Carlisle came she wouldn't have to visit the hospitals with the bad memories and needles. She could wait. _A little longer..._

A small, cool breeze caressed her ear. "Bella dear? Will you honor me in a dance?"

"Too weak," she answered him.

"You won't have to do a thing. I want to dance with you."

Was this one of her hallucinations'? Did she even have any? She didn't know anything anymore, dreams and reality blurring together. So she asked, "why?"

"We've never had a date."

That was true. They hadn't. Not one. It seemed like a good reason to dance, not to make it their date but to make the memory, something she wouldn't remember through her hazy vision, but he would. That was all the reason in thew world.

"Okay," she contested forcing her eyes open into the beauty of him. It was overwhelming to look at him like staring into the sun. .She felt the need to blink more.

He scooped her up into his arms and carried her off the bed. With utmost tenderness he stood her on his bare feet. She used all the energy she had to hang onto his neck, and he was still supporting all of her weight by her hips. She could feel the contusions forming but she didn't complain, not when she could be as close as she was, resting on his chest.

In her ear he sung songs she didn't know as he swayed them slowly back and forth in perfect timing. The world was fading, sweat breaking out along her forehead. She wheezed for air and though Jasper stood still as he heard this she felt like she was on a rocky boat.

"Bella," he beckoned frantically, but it was too far, a garbled mess.

She slipped and fell, at the very least metaphorically as he would never let her fall, but nonetheless she delved head first into wild dreams that were too real. She didn't know anything else anymore.

_She sat on her bed in Forks leaning against the wall, her knees to her chest. She was listening, nodding, engrossed into what the overly-gorgeous person was saying._

_Jasper was across from her, a wide grin on his overly-gorgeous face chatting happily. She'd never seen him so elated before. It made her feel special, as though she were the only one who saw that side of him._

_They were at ease and even if she couldn't clearly hear it was obvious he was helping her somehow. It didn't matter, only that he was there with her._

***

_It was dark, the flashlight not nearly as bright as she would like. The house was old and musty, not at all familiar. It was claustrophobic with a fear of falling into nothingness._

_She was looking for something. Someone. She wanted help and she momentarily looked over her shoulder for anyone. She was ready to scream out into the darkness but there was Jasper and he held her gaze as he was illuminated by his own mysterious light. He was following her closely, only feet from her._

_"I'm here," he said._

_She was elated that he was there but that didn't mean she stopped needing someone to assist her in her task. "Help me," she implored. "Call them for me."_

_He laughed, "I may be dead but I can't speak to them. You're safe. I'm here. Go on."_

_She did, his presence not just calming her fears but vanquishing them. There was nothing to fear when he was with her._

She may have well been drowning but she didn't care. Jasper was there, with her, wherever she was. If she was dying then she was unaware. It was sweet. The easiest thing she'd ever done.

* * *

A/N: This is the end of part one, Bella's POV.


	17. Chapter 16

**Part Two**

Chapter One

The One Thing She Wanted

When Alice hunted her visions left her temporarily. She had to be hunting then or else she would have called. She would've told him that Bella would get sick.

The second Jasper carried her to the bedroom he had shed her soaked clothes respecting her body as much as he could. He dressed her in his white button shirt and black slacks. He read that in such a case body heat was crucial but he couldn't offer his, it was non-existent, so he laid every blanket he could find on her, tucking her in so that she couldn't move if she wanted to.

Her forehead burned him. She consistently felt like a light fire to him as he felt like ice to her. An hour in the rain, a couple days later, and she was an inferno, sweat pouring off of her.

He checked his phone many times as the night dragged on, awaiting the call from Alice considering that the thing may be broken. Surely she would see this outcome?

Through the night he laid at the far end of the bed. He watched her intently. She was running a fever as high as her werewolf, but what worried him most was that she wasn't talking. She hadn't woke once but hadn't mumbled anything in her sleep like she normally did. She was deathly quiet. That was what worried him.

He was very good at keeping his emotions grounded, no one else could feel them, but he doubted it then, he was a ticking time bomb. There was nothing else he could do. He could've taken her to the nearest hospital but it was an hour away. He didn't dare move her. Carlisle would be back soon. It was a matter of time. Just like she said.

Jasper observed the tower of blankets, how they didn't move, too heavy to show that the life beneath them was breathing. He looked to her neck, the pulse point that showed the beat of her precious heart. The very heart that would be as still, quiet, and dead as his own.

He would give anything and everything to be the one that changed her. He wanted it to be his own venom that ran through her veins to freeze her. He wanted to do what Edward wouldn't. He needed her in his un-life. He would do what he had to keep her, and wouldn't make such stupid mistakes like his brother had. She was his.

He remembered when he saw her for the first time. It was in the cafeteria, her sitting with the popular in her ragged clothes, her hair nearly dried from the rain hours before. She was beautiful. More than beautiful, she was captivating. And worse was Edward staring at her with more intensity than he ever showed for a human. Alice was looking at him her eyes out of focus, her mind to the future. She didn't have to say it for him to know. Isabella Swan would be the girl that took him from her.

Bella was not just human but one that smelled delicious. Humans all smelled the same to him his taste not developed to the different flavors but he could smell the Freesia wafting off of her. She was more appetizing than most. No one, not even Edward could be more of a danger to her than him. Edward had the control he had not.

He would be honest enough to admit that if it wasn't for Edward and Alice he would've killed her. In his defense he wouldn't have done so cruelly. It would have been fast an clean, not allowing himself to taste her blood. He made a commitment after all...

At first it was just an attraction. Nothing more until she started hanging out at the house. Her personality drew him, her love and kindness. She was a magnet for danger, that was how she got him because he posed the biggest threat. It figured that he would fall in love with her.

It took Bella longer to realize. She was too wrapped up in Edward and their problems to notice what was there. She couldn't be blamed, he wasn't available and he didn't cross his brother. They were meant to find each other the way they did. He showed her he was the one for her. He came back when no one else did.

Engrossed in his thoughts he tensed when he felt the vibration of his cell phone on his hip. He jumped to his feet and took it out not looking at the caller i.d.

"Hello?"

"Jasper," Alice gasped. "You have to do it."

He didn't need to ask to know what she was talking about. "Where are you? I need Carlisle." Like the way he didn't need to ask he didn't need to tell her that Bella was getting worse, they both knew. He could feel her weakness and hear the serrated edge of her breathing.

"We won't get there in time - I thought we would - there's too much traffic, we can't move." She groaned. "I'm sorry, Jasper, but she won't make it, you'll have to change her yourself."

He gripped the bed post, it cracking threateningly in his fist. "I'll kill her -"

"No, you won't -"

"You know better than anyone that things change!"

"Jasper, you have to do it!"

"I can't!"

"She's dying! Change her! Do you want to lose her?!"

Losing her was a worse feeling than the fire smoldering the back of his throat. "Get here soon," he clicked the phone closed. The post snapped in his grip falling loudly to the floor.

Bella laid there unaware, too lost in whatever realm she was in. She looked so fragile it broke him.

Carlisle spoke of morphine to lessen the pain of the venom but there was no time for that. Just as Alice predicted her heart was slowing, her grey coloring dimming. Sometimes he hated it when Alice was right.

He threw the blankets aside and leaned over her. With the sleeve of his shirt he wiped the sweat from her face and neck. Her neck... The blood ran so close to the surface he could see and hear it. His venom dripped from his teeth in preparation.

He kissed her warm, wet lips one more time. His fingers clawed the mattress ripping the foam as he lowered himself on her. He grazed her neck.

Without breathing or giving himself a chance to leave, his teeth sunk into her smoothly, past the skin, past the flesh, her blood flooding his mouth. Had he ever tasted anything sweeter? It was the most delectable blood there ever was. Something roared within him in joy and he began to drink, sucking the life out of her.

Jasper knew somewhere in his mind that he was killing her, killing himself in the process but he couldn't stop. The sweetness of her was addicting. It was filling him, satisfying him in a way he hadn't been in too long. The burning was diminishing, soothing him. He purred.

Then she screamed. It ricocheted off the walls, stabbing him through like a sword could never do. He was hit with her pain, confusion, and fear. Startled and horrified he leapt back, off the bed to the farthest wall.

The open wound, the vivid crimson that covered her neck and the sheets, the sight and smell blazing him. She was screaming and they were dying. He could close his eyes but her blood would remain behind his eyelids, her smell would engulf him. How much longer did she have until he killed her? Because yes, he would murder the love of his existence there on the bed. She smelled and tasted too good and he was ultimately a monster.

Over her screams, his eternal thirst and rage he didn't hear Edward, only saw him barge in and stop short of the bed his hand over his nose.

"Leave Jasper," he commanded roughly.

"No," he choked out. He wanted to leave, damn he had never wanted anything more than to save her but it was too late for her and for him.

"This is hurting you."

Wasn't that the point? Hurt her, hurt himself? "I won't leave her." _Not while I kill her._

"Then stay there. Don't move." Edward lowered his hand - not breathing - and sauntered towards her.

His vision was impeccable. He could see specks of dust clearly but all Jasper saw then was Edward's bared teeth and without a second thought of what he was doing he growled furiously running forth and grabbing a handful of his shirt shoving him to the wall. The house shook. "No," he hissed. _Don't go near her._

Edward raised his hands offensively. "Alice called me to help. That venom will be slow and she's losing a lot of blood. She won't make it. Let me help, I can do this. Let me go."

Edward never attempted to kill her no matter if she was his singer, his eyes were gold and unclouded and Jasper felt hatred for him. He fantasized what it would be like to snap his head off. He didn't want his lips anywhere near her but he should've trusted him. They were losing her because he couldn't trust the man that loved her enough to save her, despite what they did to him.

"Jasper, you're killing her."

That one sentence caused one second of hesitation. Metaphorically it knocked him. He didn't move, but that didn't matter, Edward could take him and they both knew it. He pushed Jasper and sent him flying across the room knocking the wall down landing in the next room, snapping the floorboards with his impact. It didn't hurt, in fact he would feel bad later for damaging the house, Esme's pride and joy.

He stood to his feet and saw through the hole in the wall Edward over Bella, his mouth on her wrist.

Jasper rooted himself to the spot. He couldn't risk helping, or even going near them for the inclination to throw Edward to the other half of the house but in his fury he picked up a spare piece of wood and hurled it through a window, glittering glass flying everywhere.

_Carlisle didn't change her. I couldn't change her. But Edward did. The one thing Bella wanted more than anything I couldn't give her. The last person she thought would, did. I failed._

He could never make it up to her or to himself for failing at the single thing that mattered to him. Keeping Bella alive. If it wasn't for Edward, she would be dead, but no, he had to save her from him for the third time. But who was counting other than them?


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter Two

Make-Shift Family

When the sun rose Bella ceased screaming but it didn't stop the tearing of his insides. She had worn herself out but she wasn't asleep. No one could sleep through the pain and that's all he felt from her. Pain.

He laid beside her in the bed his hand in hers sending tranquil waves through her though it helped little to none and so he immersed himself in her torture as he listened to the conversation downstairs. He wished he didn't, there was no need for him to hear the story like he hadn't lived it, but he did and now he was hearing the result of it.

"Damn, Rose, we can't leave again! All the action is here!"

"Shut up, Em."

"Yes, please, Emmett," Edward said, "none of this is funny."

He chortled. "Yeah, it is. Look at the big picture. You two loved each other, but you left to keep her safe and _Jasper_ comes for her while _Victoria_ is on the loose. She got sick because of you and Jazz nearly kills her and you save her. You changed her and all those arguments about how you weren't going to take her humanity. It's all funny!"

"Only to you. Alice, can you see when Bella will come out of it?"

"Soon."

Emmett grunted, discontented with the different direction the conversation had taken. "Why didn't you tell any of us about your visions, Shorty?"

"Things had to work themselves out. I was afraid of saying anything."

"If you'd said something," Edward growled, "I wouldn't have lost her."

"You didn't lose her, Edward, you just lost the part you wanted. She's Jasper's now, lets be happy for them."

"You sound like her."

"She's right," Esme spoke up. "If this was what was meant to happen then we'll have to accept it."

"Things will be okay," Carlisle agreed, "in a little while she'll wake up. We all have to be on our guard. We don't know how this will have affected her. We're a family, we stick together."

"Family," Edward spat, "My brother hates me."

"You know that isn't true," Esme half-scolded. "When you read that in his mind he was angry. It holds no basis for how he really feels."

"You forget, mom, I can read his mind now."

"He'll forgive you."

"But will you and Bella?"

"Why wouldn't we? There's nothing to forgive!"

"I threw Jasper through the house. That should anger you both."

"You did it to save her, and I can fix the house."

Emmett broke through. "Has anyone checked on Jasper up there? Her pain must be killing him. It'll be like he's reliving it again, won't it?"

"Yes," Edward said bitterly. "It's not a recreation, nothing close."

Carlisle amended him, "he won't leave her."

"You're not up there, Edward," Emmett asked amusingly.

"He won't let me in."

"You can take him."

"I'm in enough trouble, okay?"

"Well, he deserves a little company."

"Emmett," they called in unison but it went futile, Jasper could hear him bounding up the stairs and in the next instant saw him strolling in the doorway with the inappropriate smile on his face radiance of a facade happiness overlying an inner worry.

Emmett could lie through his thoughts to Edward, but there was no hiding from him. It displeased Emmett most when Jasper winked at him when he lied to Edward in the name of good fun. The truth always came out in the end. It was like what Edward said to Bella, there were no secrets in their family. At least none that lasted long.

"How is she, bro?"

"Dying," he retorted dryly.

He sat in the chair beside them and looked at her face, the smile fading. He slipped his hand under hers fiddling with her fingers. "Worst feeling of my life..."

"It was all of ours."

"Not Alice's."

"She's always been a special case."

"Nutcase," he corrected.

"I heard that," Alice trilled downstairs.

They chuckled, but for Jasper it was short and unfulfilled. The borrowed pain wasn't the same, it was not inhibiting but it didn't relent. It was a trickling of the blaze she was feeling full on. It was like staying too close to a fire. Enough to burn and blister, but not enough to die.

"You have to get out of here, man. She wouldn't want you to go through this."

"It's the least I can do."

"What is this about? Edward won't tell us what's angering you. You're getting what you wanted!"

Jasper nodded. "At a price. I wanted my venom to change her or at least Carlisle's." Instead his eyes were red with her blood. It was an added bonus that he wouldn't leave Bella to suffer alone as he wouldn't run into anything that could show his reflection. The last thing he wanted then was to see her blood in the iris' of his eyes.

"Your venom is in there too."

"Mostly Edwards."

"Does it really matter?"

"He saved her from me again. Twice he saved her and three times I've tried to kill her. If that mongrel hadn't been there..." He couldn't finish. "I'm sick of being the weakest link."

"Like I said, does it really matter? Bella isn't going to be human much longer and she loves you. It doesn't matter who changed her, the point is this whole thing is over with. You won't have to risk her life again."

Through the anguish Jasper smiled. "You have a point, Emmett," and as he admitted it a stung of annoyance came from him.

"No need to sound surprised." He shrugged, "I'll leave you then, there's a game anyway."

Alice poked her head into the doorway. "They lose."

Emmett whipped towards her and growled. "Thanks, Alice."

"You're welcome," she said cheerily. "Remember not to call me a nutcase next time."

Jasper laughed and squeezed Bella's hand harder than he normally would hoping that the elation of the joke would carry through to her, but her face remained pulled up in pain. He never felt more helpless.

"Soon," Alice repeated as a reminder to him.

"Thank you," he said, it bringing a diminutive comfort.

Emmett left and Alice came in. She sat in Emmett's chair and took Bella's hand in the same action he had. They stayed there like that, neither one of them disturbing the other's contemplative silence. She knew that he wanted silence and he was grateful for that. There was nothing more to say.

Emmett was the comedian in the make-shift family. He made everyone laugh no matter the circumstances and even in the situation they were in - Jasper tormenting himself with his and Bella's pain - he made him laugh. He made him see that there was hope. Yes, Edward's venom was in her, he saved her, but Jasper's venom was there too, and he had more than that, he had her. The whole purpose of changing her was so that she could be with him without him fearing that he would take her life. They both got what they wanted.

There was only one more thing to do for Bella...

"How much time does she have?"

Alice smiled serenely. "If you want to talk with Edward you have time."

He brought Bella's hand to his lips kissing her knuckles. "I'll be back soon," he promised her.

In the time that Jasper had stayed with Bella the first story of the house had been decorated, furniture in their rightful places. The left room contained a new piano which Edward played Bella's lullaby sixteen times yesterday, and the priceless paintings Esme acquired. The right room was the living room with the large couch, the big-screen television, a pile of Emmet's video games, and Alice's computer. He went to the left where Esme's favorite song floated through the air.

Edward bent over the grand piano his fingers clicking over the keys expertly. He knew Jasper was waiting feet behind him but as the song ended he began Bella's lullaby again as a purposeful strike to his disloyalty. He was upset that Jasper chanted his hatred towards him in his head but he understood. He could swim in his sorrows when Jasper wasn't around, but when he was Edward would give him the blunt of the emotions he knew would bother him. Anger and blame.

_Will you stop?_

He did but didn't turn. "You left her?"

"I don't want her to wake and find us fighting."

"I don't want that either, but what are we to do? We both love her."

"That's why we can do this for her."

He stood and faced him. It was unnecessary to see the agony as it was rolling and barreling into him, but seeing it made it worse, the feeling that was killing them both as it was the girl they both cared for died.

"I asked you to stay away from her, not just because of her intoxicating scent but because of what Alice predicted. I have never been happy until her. You should've been happy with Alice."

"I was happy, but Bella is not only meant for me, not only a soul mate, she's someone I want not just need. You'll always be apart of her, as her first love and the vampire that changed her, like Alice and Maria are to me."

"That's not enough!"

"It has to be!"

"The moment I left you went to her! You were waiting!"

"No! I wasn't waiting! It was months, you have no idea how I fought over going to her. I was tired of fighting. You made your choice, Edward, you wanted her to be happy -"

"I wanted her safe and alive -"

"She is safe and in the only sense that matters to her she is alive!"

"If you'd stayed away -"

"I couldn't!"

They hadn't realized how loud they had gotten, their voices rising octaves above normal even for human ears. Emmett and Alice came in, dividing up ranks, Emmet beside Edward and Alice beside him, but they weren't there to fight. They were there to stop it.

Emmett clapped his shoulder so hard that Edward lurched forward. "Man, you should give this up. This can't be a good thing, and it's too late anyway. She chose Jazz."

"What if he took Rosalie from you?"

"I'd kill him," he stated simply but with a jab of worry at what his words would instigate.

"I'm going to do this the right way."

Alice stepped forward. "Edward, listen to me. The best thing for Bella now would be not to cause anymore discord in the family."

"She feels guilty about that enough," Jasper added.

"You'll find someone, I don't have to see that to know. Please, make up with Jasper. For Bella."

"I don't care to find someone. I want _her_. And I'm sorry, Alice, but I have other things to do than to make up with _him_," he started out the door.

"You won't win her back," she cried.

He didn't answer, gone, the front door slamming in his wake. The paintings of all of their eras rattling on the walls, until Carlisle's fell, the frame breaking from the old church in a field.

Alice laid her small hand on Jasper's arm, a surge of hope going through him. Just like when they met in that cafe. A way to her to a path to the Cullen's to a future with Bella. A domino effect and if there was such a thing as fate then his fate was with Bella. That was the reason he was turned, and in return he would do the same for her. No one would get in their way.

"You tried," Alice said but it was weak and sad and it waved over him, the hope dimming.

He shrugged from her touch leaving the room as well. He'd been away from Bella long enough.


	19. Chapter 18

Chapter Three

Blood Red Eyes

Jasper was back lying with Bella. He planned to not move again until she came to and until then he reveled in her pain while he talked to her. She could hear, he knew.

"It'll be soon, darling. Not much longer, but I'll be here. I won't leave you. I had to talk with Edward. I tried to talk sense into him, I did. I'm sorry it's for nothing. He'll come around in time. We have forever."

She didn't make any sign that she heard but Jasper felt a slight current of control. She was trying not to scream and he'd never saw anything like it. He'd witnessed thousands of humans changed and every one of them screamed and cried until they couldn't anymore. Bella, though, had always been special.

He laced their fingers, her fading warmth cascading over him. All that time lost... She was right when she said that things happened the way they were supposed to, but those moments he wished to be with her most... It was painful. But he was there on her second day of her renovations and she was with him. They were given their chance, the one he feared he'd never get.

When James was hunting her it was by no accident that Alice volunteered them, and no accident that Edward loathed the idea. It was helpful that Bella found a good reason for them to be there. Every minute that they watched her was a minute that Jasper closed in on the edge threatening to jump. Her worry over his brother was understandable but not easy. Not when he just wanted her to look at him that way.

He rubbed his thumb over her veins where the blood still flowed. Her blood and Edward's venom.

It was never supposed to be Edward that changed her. He continually tried to end Alice's vision, their future, their happiness. If he didn't stop then, when would he?

There was no question whether Bella would forgive him for nearly drinking her dry. It was in Bella's nature to forgive. She forgave him instantly for all those times he attempted to kill her. She would forgive him without a second thought.

The problem was that he couldn't forgive himself. Who almost killed their reason for living three times? For as long as he existed he would never forgive himself.

He ignored the chattering of the others in the house, the song that Edward was playing and focused entirely on the thudding of her heartbeat. Her heart was his sonnet. It flared his throat but it was worth it to listen. He listened to it more than anyone knew. Each time he was in her company he paid the most attention to it. He knew Edward assumed it was because he was thirsty and he let him think it, but the truth was that he lived to hear it. It was like hearing his own, or a part of himself he didn't have.

It may have been insane, but he begun to think that when he died the beat of his heart went on to live in her to keep her going until he found her. It made sense to him. He lived to die and she lived with his heart until he sought her out for her to die too. With him. Together in death. Forever will be.

Then, in one final thud, the sonnet ended.

He released her hand and stood, the others immediately filing into the room to watch but Jasper stationed himself in front of them. He wanted to be the first one Bella saw.

She was astounding, as she incessantly had been, but she was different in her way as he knew she'd be. No image he conjured in his mind of her change did her justice. Her skin that held its translucency diminished to complete bloodless, her chocolate hair vividly bright in dark waves to her waist.

"She's beautiful," Alice breathed.

"She has always been beautiful," Edward argued.

Jasper tuned them out. This moment was just for him and Bella. No one else existed in the world but them at that moment. He'd put Edward and the fact that he was the one to change her out of his mind. He'd put every worry aside because in the end it would be Jasper and her. They belonged together, and the moment where she would see with him first with her improved eyes would be a moment he wanted to remember without the distractions.

Bella was his. She would for eternity belong to him. End of story.

Bella opened her blood red eyes and they instantly fixed on his gold ones. They looked at each other for an immeasurable chunk of time.

It was only then that Jasper realized how he must've looked with his scars, the scars that the human Bella could have never fully seen. He knew how vampires reacted and it was not good, they were scared of him, defensive and she would have all of her animal instincts to the front as a newborn.

That was not to even mention that his eyes were red with her blood. She would think he slipped up in his diet... But that didn't seem to be the case...

He did not manipulate her emotions. There was no need to as he could only feel rays of love emitting from her. He froze, holding his breath waiting for her.

She leapt up and ran in her new speed at him her arms swinging over him holding him more tightly than he had ever been held. Her strength hurt but he wasn't going to complain, he was more submerged into her elation and he let it fill him up. He embraced her lifting her off her feet and found her lips with ease. He truly kissed her the way he had wanted to kiss her when he first saw her in the cafeteria in what seemed ages ago. She was durable against him, holding her own. She was warm, not blazing, the pain in his throat minimal as he could only smell her sweetness, the faintest of her Freesia as he knew she could smell his Orchid scent.

He swiped her bottom lip with his tongue, he massaged it with hers. They breathed each other in. They drunk each other in the way that was proper for two vampires not a vampire and a human. He knew of nothing else but her, until that is, a sharp cough from Emmett interrupted them, but when he set her down and returned her mouth they did not break their hold, neither did their eyes.

"You're beautiful," Bella spoke, a spike of surprise at her lovely bell-tone voice.

Emmett snickered but Jasper didn't mind him. His eyes swam with venomous tears. No one had ever called him beautiful before. "Bella, is something wrong with your eyes?"

She smiled. "I see better than I ever have." She traced a scar beneath his right eye that blended with several others. "You are magnificent."

He cupped her cheek feeling the satin smoothness of her hard skin. There was no blush, no blood, it was pale and lovely. "No more than you are, Bella dear."

Their revere was broken as Alice danced forward. "You won't believe how you look! Don't go anywhere! I'm getting you a mirror!"

Bella looked nervously to the others as if just noticing that they were there (though she had known) and then she glimpsed to Jasper and he smiled reassuringly at her. He felt a mix of surprise and annoyance.

Alice came back in with a full-sized mirror they all knew to be one of the many Rosalie had. She set it in front of Bella and waved for her to see.

With the greatest of hesitations' she peered in. A shock bowled into him and he held her wrist ready if she lost control.

"My eyes are red."

In turn he gripped her shoulder though he knew that it wouldn't make a difference, he merely had to touch her to transfer the emotion he wanted only her to feel, but he didn't send out anything yet. "Only for the first month, remember?" He knew she wouldn't recall it right away, but none of them were certain of how she would react with her preparation, and startlingly she fell into a calm and it was his turn to be shocked.

"You reigned in your emotion," he said but it came out more of a question.

"Is that wrong?"

"No... You shouldn't be able to do that..." No, she shouldn't be able to do that. She should be wild and uncontrollable, and as much as it puzzled him he felt happy.

Alice grinned proudly, "I knew she'd be special."

Edward mouthed, "I knew it too."

In a sudden idea Jasper stood directly behind her lowering his mouth to her ear. "Bella, look at us."

"I am," she said with a grin, remembering.

"Do you see it now? How beautiful you are?"

"I see how beautiful you are. I can smell you better now. You smell like Orchids."

"You're right."

"I'm still me," she jest but she was amused by it, by how she still felt like herself, only stronger and better.

"Yes, you're still you. Kind and divine as you were when you were human. Nothing will change that."

In the mirror she beamed at him lighting up his soul.

"Come, I'll show you how to hunt."

She gasped in a lungful of air like the idea was inducing fear. It almost made him laugh.

"There's nothing to be afraid of."

"No," she agreed. "You'll be there."

Edward growled, but there again, he didn't exist to them. She seized his hand and together they walked out of the room.


	20. Chapter 19

Chapter Four

Resolution

The nearest woods were farther back then the ones at their Forks home. The upside was that they could get there simply by running which was always a plus in any property they owned. They didn't have to hide, they didn't have neighbors.

Bella enjoyed it the most. She let go, running and taking bounds through the air. She giggled and laughed and it sent something soaring inside of Jasper as he watched her, one step behind her the whole way, her new vampire strength giving her a good start. If he wasn't determined to go with her on her first hunt then he would have loved to sit back and bask in the glory of her happy new life.

The emotions that had trailed him downstairs and out the back door were fading. He heard Emmett laughing and though he didn't have to look to know what they would look like, he looked anyway.

In the upper window that took the spans of the wall was Carlisle with his arm lovingly around Esme both of them gleaming. Emmett was roaring in laughter at his brother's slowness in comparison to his newborn girlfriend. Rosalie's face was stony, impassive though if he were just a tad nearer he could feel the coldness and hatred seeping off of her. Alice was looking excited, and he knew that she was planning an array of outfits to try out on Bella.

Jasper looked to Edward last and their eyes met. He wasn't as cold as Rosalie but that merely made it worse. He was depressed, the lines in his face deeper, his eyes pitch black after going weeks without hunting, putting himself under the branding iron of retribution. There was no room for forgiveness.

Jasper broke their gaze and followed Bella into the woods. He ran after her until they couldn't see the house anymore and therefore none of their family could see them.

She stopped and spun, her expression agonized. It was such a dramatic changed from her bubbling happiness that he stepped forward to calm her, but she held up a hand and he stopped. Even in her abrupt switch in emotions she remained in control. He not only admired it, but envied it.

"Why are your eyes red, Jasper? What happened?" If she could shed tears he was sure she'd be shedding them then. "Who did you..."

He was hoping to put off the particular conversation of his weakness, but she wasn't going to let it go, he could see that, _feel_ that. He tried anyway. "You must be thirsty, Bella. Lets hunt and I'll tell you later -"

"Tell me now. Whose blood is it? It's okay, Jasper, I'll understand, I just need to know. What happened when I was out? Please, whose blood is it?"

He stole an unneeded breath. "Yours."

She shook her head. "I don't understand..."

"You were dying of pneumonia, I tried to change you, but... I couldn't stop. I was killing you. I was going to. Edward stopped me and he changed you. I'm sorry, Bella. I'm -" He cut off as she rushed into him, her arms circling his waist, her face buried into his chest. He touched her silky hair bowing to inhale its scent, but it did nothing but flare the misery he was feeling. If it wasn't for his brother he wouldn't be standing there with her. Instead he would be at her funeral. That thought put him through the misery of a beasts fiery pits.

"It's okay, Jasper."

"Don't," he shushed, her sympathy wrenching his insides out. He knew that she would be too understanding.

"It's not your fault."

He squeezed her. "You're too tolerant for your own good, Bella." He felt her smile.

She leaned to look into his face that he quickly tried to erase the misery from. "Teach me to hunt oh wise one."

He kept his hands on her hips and bent to her ear. "Let yourself go. Do what you want to do. It's natural, Bella dear. Go."

Her eyes flew open and with all the speed she had in her she ran through the woods. He trailed her a good distance away as they ran over the mossy growth, and under the low hanging boughs. The earth dipped low and rose again and she stopped and so did he, a good ways from her. He didn't want her to become territorial and lash out at him.

Three White-Tailed bucks hung their heads over a group of green branches. Bella sunk herself into a crouch ready to spring.

He backed himself until he felt a tree on which he could lean against. As eager as she was to watch the documentary on his era, he was eager to watch her hunt. It was the most captivating sight he'd ever seen.

Bella moved with grace (peculiar since she'd been quite the opposite). She moved with assurance. She was dutiful into the haze of her thirst. She made killing into an art.

Her hands clasped its neck breaking it swiftly, it going instantly limp. The others fled and she buried her teeth into its jugular. She drunk deeply, soft moans rolling inside of her. When she was done she pushed the empty buck off her lap and stood.

Dirt and blood covered her, her hair tangled in a mess and yet she was the most powerful and endearing creature he'd ever laid eyes on.

"That didn't go so well..."

"On the contrary, you did quite well for your first time."

"I'm still thirsty."

He shrugged. "You're new."

Slowly, at a humans pace she came up to him. "I haven't said thank you."

Jasper cocked his head to the side, confused. "Anyone could've taught you to hunt. _No one_ had to teach you."

"That's not what I meant. Thank you for wanting me forever."

"Of course I want you forever, Bella, but did you not understand the story? I didn't change you. Edward did. You would bee dead if not for him." If he spent the rest of eternity not having to say that again he would be happy.

"I understood the story. I'll thank Edward later."

"Then why are you giving me gratitude?"

"You saved me once, don't forget that. And Edward only bit me to save me, didn't he? It wasn't because he wanted me."

He touched her cheek. He didn't want to stand up for his brother ,but it was rather unfair that she didn't comprehend. "Edward does want you. The love he feels for you is almost as strong as my own. His only desire was to keep your soul."

"You believe I've kept my soul?"

"Darling, the moment I saw you... When you opened your eyes today..." A million ways to explain, the raced through his mind, one better than other. "How can I not believe," he settled simply. He never believed before, he never considered once that he retained his soul when he was changed. But Bella... She was too compassionate, too sweet, too perfect not to have kept hers. Whatever higher power there was could not have taken that from her, no matter the reason.

She shimmered in his vision and nodded. "One more buck," she said. "Then we can go home."

Home... With Bella... It hit him then, as if he never knew... They were a family... Him and Edward were having a brother's quarrel. In the end they would simply be. Edward and Alice would find their mates in other people, and Jasper would marry Bella and together they would live on in eternity. Correction: There was no ending for them. They did have eternity now.

Sixteen minutes later she took down two more bucks and he joined her for the last one. The taste was even less satisfying than usual, but that was because the taste of Bella's life was fresh inside of him.

He thanked the forces above for his brother and the enchanting woman beside him. That was his resolution. Things would be okay. For the first time he was sure that his family would remain integral as it always had been. It was the first time that he truly cared. Because of her.

Bella would remain the center of his family, but their family together… It would be all right. They were complete, they had what they wanted: Eternity with each other.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the shortness of some chapters (like this one) but I've never been one to write very long ones. Please be content in the fact that I do post often.


	21. Chapter 20

Chapter Five

Resolving

When they returned Emmett was there in the doorway awaiting impatiently for his new sister's return. The second she stepped in the living room however, he burst out into laughter shaking the foundation.

"What happened to you?!"

If she could have blushed she would've then. "I hunted."

"Don't tease her, Em, you weren't smooth on your first trip either," Edward reminded him.

"Calm down, boys," Esme chided them from her post by Carlisle in the corner overlooking their family.

Emmet let out a snort but sat beside Edward on the couch picking up his remote to the video game. It looked as though he was winning again, flying faster down the dark roads of London, England, Edward a hair from his rear fender.

Two people were missing. "Where's Alice and Rosalie?"

"Shorty's upstairs finding clothes for Miss Messy there."

Bella groaned. "Oh no, I better stop her." She hurried off making feather light steps up the stairs. Jasper chuckled.

"Rose is sulking," Emmett continued but his voice was at the perfect pitch for no one else to hear outside of the room.

He expected as much from the vampire that would give anything to be human. If she couldn't she'd give up Emmett if it mean she could bear children, though he saw little purpose in that.

Jasper didn't give much thought to children. He never felt like he missed out, not until he fell in love with Bella. He could too easily envision them human, her with their child. The baby would have had her deep brown eyes, his unruly blond hair. The child would be the best of both of them. Perfection.

There was a vision of her in a rocking chair, a small boy in her arms. He would stand there with them singing the lullaby's he knew until their baby was asleep.

They would watch that boy grow up...

"What are you planning to do," Edward said in a strained voice purposefully breaking Jasper from his imaginings. "What are you two going to do about Charlie and her school?"

Jasper directed his thoughts away from the son he could never have. He had a good answer for Edward as he already thought it out long ago, before he came to fetch Bella.

"There was an accident. She was trapped in Alice's basement during a heater combustion. We'll give him some ashes, our apologies and enroll Bella into a new school. She's doing very well but I'll take her out in a month to see how she does around humans."

"It sounds like you thought it all out. Did Alice die as well?" There was an edge to his tone, it was icy.

"She survived. Naturally she was out shopping when it happened. I think it would be best if she went to deliver the news. She was the closest of us to Charlie."

Alice skipped in the room but there was a sense of frustration around her, no doubt due to Bella's incorporation. "I don't think we should tell Charlie that she's dead."

Bella appeared behind her, a sadness trailing her. She fidgeted with the new green top. "There's another way?"

Edward pitched the controller on the armrest and moved to his feet. "We'll tell him she's sick. We'll wait out her newborn stage until she's ready to face him."

"Edward," Esme cautioned, "she won't look the same. Charlie will see that she's different."

"She won't tell him anything, only that the illness changed her." He smiled sardonically. "That's the truth."

Alice perked up. "Oh! That gives a much better outlook! Good thinking!"

He grinned proudly and happiness radiated off of Bella at the thought of seeing her father again. Jasper focused singularly on her letting the new feeling wash over her him.

"I can go back to Forks," she exclaimed.

"After a year," Jasper told her.

"Why," Emmett asked, almost rudely. "You said she was doing good, didn't you?"

"We won't know for sure until she's with humans and it's in her best interest to not try that out yet."

"Not yet," Bella agreed. "A month," she offered, but there was uncertainty in it as if she thought it would take a year like other newborns.

Jasper kissed the top her head giving her his hope. "I won't let you do anything you'll regret."

"I trust you."

Edward glowered at them unleashing fury at him, but as Jasper raked her perfect features it was little to nothing of an annoyance. He held onto Bella's rays and as long as she was with him he was immune to everyone else. She was his best medicine.

It was very characteristic of Edward to ruin that moment between them.

"Have you told her? Next week we'll be leaving."

Her horror stabbed him. "No! Ple-"

_Thanks a lot Edward, you had to put it that way, didn't you?_

Alice seized her hand. "Bella, it's okay. I'll be going to Forks to give your dad some forged documents. Charlie is under the impression you're temporarily attending school here with me. I won't be gone two days."

"Edward?"

He beamed at being considered ignoring Jasper's jibe. "I'll be in Alaska with the Denali clan. I need time to adjust. I'll be back soon."

Jasper nudged her stealing her attention. "It won't be long." He lowered his voice for her, "no need to feel guilty, darling."

"Why don't you two just go with her," Emmett spoke up.

"What're they going to do Em," Rosalie snarled coming in the door. "Plug her nose while they're in the airport?"

"He said she's doing good!"

Bella ached and Jasper considered it... She would be near Charlie. She could go to him straight away when her eyes turned to normal. She would be home, more at ease. Perhaps she wouldn't even look into the mirror every morning like he knew she would to check if her iris' were gold yet. It could be good for her... She would get closure...

Then again, it could be the worst thing in the world for her. She could lose control, could get out of his and Alice's grasp (she had before when she was human), she could kill everyone on the plane.

He weighed the prons and cons. He looked into her face. She could be happy or devastated…

"Do you want to go," he asked.

She was hopeful. "Can we? I don't know if I'll..."

"We'll have Alice there, she'll keep a look-out for you. I won't leave your side. If worst comes to worst we _can_ plug your nose."

Her eyes shimmered again. "Really? That's great! Thank you, Jasper!" she hugged him, his steal bones creaking but in her arms pain was a minor thing.

"Anything for you, Bella dear." He looked to Alice speaking with his eyes, pleading.

She nodded. She would test her that night.

Jasper wanted to go in case things went terrible. But he had something he had to do that night… He wouldn't get much time otherwise and it was ideal while she was out of the house… Alice was as good as anyone.

"You know what this means," Alice trilled.

Bella froze, the horror returning and Jasper laughed. It had to be the cutest thing.

She released him and spun on Alice, not angrily but pitying. "I'm sorry, but I'm happy with the clothes I have."

Alice wrinkled her nose in distaste. "How can you be," she asked as if it was a question she shouldn't have to ask. "You dress way too plainly for someone who is gorgeous!"

She faced him helplessly. "Jasper," she whimpered.

He gleamed at Alice her jumping up and down in place fervently. "How do you plan to go shopping? She's only hours old!" _Play the part… Don't let Bella know…_

"I've been planning for this," she explained obviously. "Esme's cottage is redone! It's a little to the south, there's no humans there so it's completely safe! I bought out the nearest store for Bella to shop!"

"I tried," he told Bella.

"Barely," she growled throwing him an empty threatening glare as Alice pushed her outside.

It never ceased to amaze him how in control she was. He could feel every bit of it. The tiniest bit of frustration and she would instantly reign it in. It wasn't normal, and if he was to be honest with himself, he would admit that it was frustrating him. He was 146 years old and he still wasn't able to control himself that well. It was inequitable.

Alice returned standing at his side, her mouth to his ear for him to hear. "I saw what she'll wear that night. I know the perfect blue dress."

He didn't look down or move an inch, a smiling curling at the edge of his lips. "May I forewarn you, dear sister, that she will not like that."

She rolled her eyes. "I know!"

"Take care of her. Call me if something happens -"

"Jazz," she groaned, "she'll be fine, I'll be there. She's doing so well, she'll listen to me. If neither of us trusted her we wouldn't put her in this situation." And in flawless lilt she pranced out of the room.

He would have tried harder to keep Bella there with him despite how in restrained she felt to him, but she was safe (and everyone else) with Alice. Bella trusted him with his blood-thirst and it was time to trust her. After all, she acted century's older than she should.

There was one issue that had to be solved. It was for all of their sanities. He had to resolve things with Edward. Bella deserved as much from them. For her sake he had to keep the family together. As forgiving as she was towards others the same couldn't be said when it came to forgiving herself.

"Carlisle, Esme, Emmett, could I have some time with Edward here?"

Carlisle and Esme nodded understandingly and a bit proud that their sons were working out their problems. Esme shouldn't jump to too many conclusions because it wasn't for certain if either one of them were going to throw each other through the house a second time.

Emmett clicked the television off with a noise of impatience. "Hunt with Rose, I guess," he sighed and ducked outside.

Carlisle and Esme went up the stairs. There was a bit of an edge to Carlisle as if he was preparing himself to stop any more destruction to the house or worse to either of his sons.

Jasper and Edward stood alone, adjacent in the room. Edward folded his arms over his chest, his face a mask, but his feelings gave him away. He was angry, sad, and irritated.

"I won't say I'm sorry," Jasper warned. "I'm not."

"You should be," he spat. "You should've called me when Bella had to be changed. And now you have the gall to let her go out! She may be in control Jasper, but you of all people know what happens when you get a whiff. You become an animal! If she does something she regrets it'll be on your head!"

"First of all, she's safe with Alice. You know that. She's better than all of us at managing her emotions and if she has that kind of strength we need to know what else she has. Second of all, she was your singer. You was as much danger to her then as I was." That last part was a lie and he had know idea why he did. It was something he wanted to believe, but deluding himself would do no good, Edward knew better.

"Whatever gave you that idea? Not once in my relationship with her have I attempted to kill her. I've never even snapped at her. Don't lie to me or through your thoughts, Jasper, I saved her, and that's why you didn't call me. You feared that she would come back to me when she found out. The only honest thing you've thought about me is that you hate me."

"I don't hate you. You know that thought was because of my anger at you. It had no real basis."

"Other than I'm still in love with her."

"Yes," he hissed. He didn't anticipate his resolve with Edward being so difficult. He should have known. Edward loved Bella fiercely and Jasper took her effortlessly.

Effortlessly was the wrong word... He came close to killing her more than he would like to admit, but there was no challenge where Edward was concerned. Because Edward wasn't there.

Jasper shoved his hands into his pockets, one of the many acts of fitting in with humans. "You see how happy she is. You can't deny that you left her broken."

"And you were the one to put her together?"

"No," he opposed, "When she's with me it's like she was never broken in the first place."

"I see that." He meant it in the literal sense. He was watching his memories, saved clips in his head he held precious, like one of her on the bed twirling a strand of her hair, her biting her lip, her smiling, her kissing him.

"Stop it," Edward begged in pain.

"You see all those things -"

"I accept she's happy with you, but I don't like it. I can't fully pardon your feelings for her."

"You see what I do for her but do you see what she does for me? She's more than my world, she's my universe. These feelings aren't new and I grew tired of ignoring them. I need and want her. You knew this was coming. Don't just accept her part in this. Accept us. I'll take care of her."

"Answer me this... If I didn't leave..."

"It would've still happened. Somehow, we would find our way to each other."

Edward set his jaw tightly.

_I don't hate you, brother. But I love her._

He relaxed but only marginally. "I love you both."

Edward wasn't happy. There was no question about that, but it was a start. They could move on as friends, Bella wouldn't be torn. The family would remain intact. They would all get what they wished for eventually.

He strolled the distance between them and grasped his hand. Friends. Brothers.

"When will you give her the ring?"

Jasper chuckled. "While Alice is torturing her I'm going to pick it up." He thought of the silver solitaire circled by sapphires.

"It's lovely."

"Not compared to her."

"I agree."


	22. Chapter 21

Chapter Six

The First Night

Jasper took his time picking up Bella's engagement ring from the store. Alice would of course keep her all night playing dress up much to his and Bella's chagrin. He half expected for her to make a break for it, but it was very likely that due to her immense guilt over her choice of vampire's that she let her sister do what she wanted. No matter how painful that may be.

He wished that her guilt was something he could take permanently from her. He however didn't have that range of his power, and it was too much apart of her to be considered an emotion. It didn't appear and disappear, she consistently took the world upon her shoulders. He couldn't change that, and he didn't want to, not completely. Altering Bella wouldn't make her Bella anymore.

It was nearing five in the morning. He lounged on the bed upstairs flipping her ring over his fingers. The diamond wasn't overly huge, it was just the right size that would send glimmers on the wall when the light caught it. The sapphire's circled it letting the stone naturally stand out. It was ideal for his Bella.

The ring he bought Alice was large and fancy, stones concealing the band. He liked it, she loved it. But the ring he held then would be something him and Bella would both love. It wouldn't be placed in a box in the back of a drawer. It would remain on her finger. There would never be anyone else and he didn't need Alice's premonitions know that.

When he heard her car pull in he quickly hid the ring in a box and into the suitcase on the floor beside him. He hurried out of the bed and downstairs to greet them at the door.

Bella at once came running into his arms dry sobbing the number 153 over and over again. Terror gripped him. 153 bodies? She killed 153 people? How? He looked to Alice questioningly, her arms covered with dressing bags.

She mouthed "over-reaction. Dresses. She was amazing."

He raised is brows higher smoothing Bella's hair from the roots to the ends at her waist, but he was certain that she could feel the rumble in his chest that was the beginning of a boisterous laugh. "A hundred and fifty-three dresses, Alice? Do you think you went overboard?"

She narrowed her eyes dangerously. "No! It was all very essential. She doesn't own one gown! In this family she must dress better!"

He knew it was more than that. Alice had to have seen the vision of his proposal to Bella and although it was simple with no need to adorn elaborate garb she would think otherwise. "That's not a requirement." He meant in the family and in the proposal and she was aware of that.

She put a single finger to her lips to signal silence as if Bella didn't already know that the Cullen clan didn't survive on fashion obsession.. Just Alice.

She patted Bella's head and slid past her up the stairs. "You'll thank me later," she called.

"Doubtful," Bella muttered.

He wasn't so doubtful. He _would_ thank Alice later.

"Was it really that bad," Jasper asked biting his cheek to keep from laughing.

That was something about Bella, it was like she had his power, only she used it on him sending a consistent wave of what could only be describe as making him feel euphoric. He was helpless against her, laughing and smiling.

"It wasn't how I wanted to spend my first night as a vampire. You know... There was a human..." She flinched swallowing the excess venom thickly. "He came up to the door... Jasper, I almost -"

"You did well. You resisted." How he couldn't begin to imagine but he was not surprised. He knew Bella could do it.

"I held my breath."

"You're amazing," he stated.

Carlisle mentioned something upstairs earlier... About her power being control... That was better than anything else, for instance her being stronger than him, something which he was too insecure to face.

He changed the subject. "How did you want to spend your first night?"

He could hear Alice upstairs stashing the new dresses into Bella's suitcases, Carlisle turning a page in his book, Edward hopping in through a window, the whirring of Esme's computer, and Emmett and Rosalie... The one thing he wanted to hear, he didn't, which was Bella's response. He was swimming in embarrassment from her.

Tilting back he peered into her face, hoping to read something more helpful there, and he saw it, the meaningful glint in her eyes. The near pleading.

Tenderly he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and from there he brushed his hand downward over her neck. "When we first make love," he whispered, "I'd prefer it not to be in a houseful of people. I want it to be just you and me with no chances of being interrupted."

The Cullen's never interjected during moments like that. Vampires had wonderful selective hearing, but he wanted Bella alone in the utmost way. He knew that she never been with anyone before, and he wanted it to be meaningful for her in every way.

She sighed. "I can understand that."

He wrapped her more securely against him, though she couldn't be any closer. He bent low and ran his lips from her forehead to between her eyes, along the bridge of her nose until he swept over her lips. He pressed on them roughly, pulling her tighter against him.

There couldn't be any miscommunication on the subject of their consummation. He had to show her how badly he wanted her, and that they would both get what they wanted. They only had to wait a little while. He wouldn't expect it to be perfect, but he wanted the time to be right.

The feel of her body, her lips tugging gently on his, it was too much. He kindly pushed her back running his nose alongside hers before smiling down at her. "Sorry, darling, but… We should wait."

She nodded. "And we have a plane to catch..."

"You can do this. I trust you. If it weren't for your eyes I think you could see Charlie."

She shook her head frantically. "No, no, I'm not ready for that. What if... I'm a coward," she laughed hollowly.

"You're not a coward. You have time, a few months."

"I think we best get going now. Alice says there'll be traffic."

He kissed her again, hard. _No miscommunication… _ "I want it as badly as you do. If death shall not have me, I'll give you that first night, Bella dear."

"Death will never have you, Jasper."

"That's why we'll have our night."

Alice trotted up to them then, four suitcases in her grasp letting them fall loudly to the floor as if in announcement. Carlisle, Esme, Emmett, Rosalie, and Edward came to stand with her.

One by one they said goodbye to their family. Carlisle shook Jasper's hand, Esme kissed him on both cheeks, Emmett punched him, Rosalie jerked her head in a nod, and Edward with his arms around Bella formed the words over her shoulder, "take care of her."

Jasper nodded. _I will. Don't worry. She's indestructible now. No one can harm her. I __won't let any come to her._

"I know," he said silently as he released Bella from his grasp.

He stepped sideways to gather her next to him. It was possessively and she gazed up at him worriedly but he showed no signs that it was his intention. It wasn't, it was reaction.

"Call us when you get there," Esme told them.

"We will," Alice promised. "It'll be a smooth flight."

They turned to the door, Edward giving him one last glare of a warning.

_I promise, Edward._

_

* * *

_A/N: It may be a disappointment to some of you not to see how Bella reacted towards the human, but I think we can all imagine as we have seen it in the series. This is Jasper's point-of-view after all, and as much as he would have liked to be there, it wasn't plausable for him to go clothes shopping with them. Anyway, he had the engagement ring to pick up.


	23. Chapter 22

Chapter Seven

Home

Just as Alice predicted, it was cloudy and rainy when they arrived in Forks. Nothing out of the ordinary, but they would have been quite out of luck if they arrived on one of its rare sunny days.

The moment they landed Bella was filled with jubilation at being home. It filled him as well and together with their hands joined they basked in it.

Jasper dropped their bags in the lounge at the foot of the stairs at their old home, the scent of them had nearly gone. Alice danced around the empty space stirring up the thin layer of dust and said, "it needs furniture."

"Sounds like a job for you," Bella said.

"Of course, and I'll get to it, but first things first. We have to visit the reservation."

Jasper braced himself for the worry or shock that Bella would feel. He had purposefully forgotten to tell her about it. It was better if it was sprung on her, she wouldn't have time to brood and worry and make herself mentally sick over the prospect. Sure enough, her emotions punched him in the gut nearly doubling him over.

"WHAT?! Visit the werewolves?! We're not allowed on their side of the line!"

Alice glowered at him. "You didn't tell her?"

Jasper grasped Bella's hands. "We have an obligation to tell the dogs that we're here. It's courtesy."

Bella appeared to be losing more color, her panic rising. He constricted her hands in his trying with all his might (harder than he ever had to) to soothe her.

"It's not that bad," Alice commented.

"I'm not ready to face them, Jasper. I can't, not yet."

"Why is that, Bella dear?"

"They'll hate me! I can't stand there and watch my best friend loathe me!"

He would never understand how someone could _loathe_ Bella. It had to be impossible, especially for her dog who loved her for most of their lives. "Jacob won't hate you."

"That's why werewolves exist, right? They're made to destroy us. He'll never forgive me for this."

"He forgave you before it happened."

"How do you know?"

"I've talked with him. I know. Please, darling, come with us. You'll see." He was very much willing to bet that Jacob wouldn't hate her. It was not a question in his mind as it was in hers. He did however had doubts about the others. Jacob's pack wouldn't be understanding of their situation. Jacob even wasn't likely to be understanding, he was just accepting it.

She squeezed him back, her emotions remaining in that high state, keeping him a little disjointed. "Okay," she exhaled, letting go of the fight she would lose with Alice. "I will."

"Then lets go. We'll get this over with."

It was not as though visiting the werewolves was something that Jasper wanted to do. In fact, he was not looking forward to it any more than Bella was. They took the rented car (until they bought a new one) and when he went over the line that separated them he visibly flinched and stiffened. It was like waiting for a bomb to unexpectedly land on the car. It felt exactly like it did when encroached on enemy territory, because that was what they were doing. They were going into enemy land.

In the passenger seat Bella rested her hand between them, palm up. He slipped his fingers through hers. She passed on her trepidation and he passed on his repose or whatever he had left in him.

Bella stared out over the sea, the jutting rocks where a few Quileute men were jumping. She watched with great interest. He could see out of the corner of his eye that none of them were her mongrel, but he knew that was not why she was watching. She was contemplating something deep, something he didn't ask. He honestly didn't want to know.

He pulled into the reservation, the cold air and rain leaving no one outside. She pointed forward and left guiding him through to Sam's house, an endearing little dwelling with boxes of flowers swaying in the wind. He parked a close distance to it, and they all climbed out.

Sounds of raucous laughter and plates being shifted and food being scarfed down were easy to hear, so easy that a passing human may hear them. Looking to them Bella was passing on her idea of the situation with slitted red eyes. They clasped hands once more and he kissed the top of her head, breathing in her scent. It was literally a breath of fresh air, and he felt her smile.

Alice took the lead up to the door, her slight figure keeping its bounce, and she gently knocked. She plastered a pleasant smile to her face, but her nose was scrunched up like his and Bella's. The smell of wet dog was inescapable and apparently their presence was giving them the same feeling as the noise was instantly silenced and Sam opened the door.

He was a very tall man with rounded shoulders and a face that was more ancient than it was supposed to be. He was calculating as he appraised them, his dark eyes falling upon Bella and they seemed to darken with anger. That was exactly what flowed from him. Unadulterated anger.

The other pack members were behind him and Jasper found Jacob behind his shoulder in a curious state of wonder, his right cheek puffed out a second before he swallowed whatever food he had tucked in it.

"I see you chosen your side Bella," Sam said.

Bella trembled and he closed his fingers more securely around her. "Yes."

She only gazed at Jacob but Jacob gazed at Alice. It was then that Jasper noted that Alice hadn't said anything, not hi, or any such happy greeting she would normally give. She was staring right at Jacob with a mix of relief and...

"Jasper," Bella gasped.

He realized that he was growling, it ripping its way through his teeth from his chest, rumbling his rib cage. "Imprint," he hissed in explanation.

She must have known what it was, her precious dog must've told her, because she surveyed Alice and Jacob and her mouth parted in surprise. The couple didn't move, plainly staring at one another like they were entranced, lighted, and that was exactly what it was. They were _happy,_ devoted. Bonded beyond measure.

"They can't, can they?"

"They can…"

"That's why she couldn't see her future?"

"Yes. Because the _dog_ was in it."

A few of the pack members weren't breathing, others were growling, and yet a few were simply breathing a marathon's exercise, their body's trembling readying for transformation. Readying for a fight...

"But they're poison to us," one of the younger ones said, only a pup. A new one. "Can that happen?"

No one answered him. It was obvious. Whether their venom could kill them or not, it _did_ happen.

Jacob Black imprinted on Alice Cullen. A werewolf and a vampire. That was a new one… A dangerous one...

"The treaty…"

"Is void," he finished for Bella.

They couldn't start a war and though Jasper would never think of hurting Jacob, he wouldn't mind sinking his teeth into Sam. He craved it and now - because of that mutt - he couldn't. That dream was over.

Then Bella said the last thing he ever thought she would. Everyone froze as the words came out of her mouth.

"This is great!"


	24. Chapter 23

Chapter Eight

Consequences

Because of the constant growling, the threats, and lack of space Sam sent all of his pack home. That didn't include Jacob and a very young round-face boy named Seth.

Seth was an odd pup as he didn't seem to mind in the least that he was in the company of three vampires, two of them with black eyes and one with red. A danger sign no matter how you looked at it, but the boy was utterly relaxed, his legs stretched out in front of him, a slight smile at the corner of his lips.

They all sat in the small kitchen, all of their noses wrinkled, and fists clenched in effort not to start a battle right then and there. This was of course in the exception of Seth and Bella. Seth was mildly curious and Bella - if she was human - would be close to an anxiety attack. Jasper sent a stream of calm throughout the room though he was far from feeling that himself.

Alice was a different story entirely. He'd never felt her more at ease, her sights directly on Jacob and Jacob didn't break their connection. He was on the edge of his seat leaning towards her trying to close the gap.

He observed the kitchen, the gritty counter, the crumbs on the floor. He listened for a scurrying of a mouse but heard and smelled nothing. Not that he tried to smell. It was hard to sniff anything _but_ dog.

"This changes things," Sam said, his tone boarding that of an insane man. He was trying to disguise his feelings in his voice, but it hid nothing from Jasper. He knew that he angry.

"This makes everything better, doesn't it," Bella asked frantically. "There can't be a war, we can all live in peace. This is a good thing."

Sam set his jaw and didn't answer. Neither did Jasper. One thing they saw eye to eye on was that war would be a good thing. It was in their nature to kill each other. It called to them and it was Carlisle's pacifists nature to settle on amity. If Jasper had his way the wolves would have been instinct long before Bella had been born.

What if that had happened? Jacob wouldn't be alive. He wouldn't have been around to tend to her when Edward left her. What would she have done without him? That was a moot point. He would have still came. He would have brought Bella back from the abyss she had took to living in. He would have saved her himself.

"How are you going to make this work," Seth asked curiously, "if you're poisonous to her?"

"And the scent," Sam added revoltingly.

Jacob snarled, "I don't smell her."

Jasper knew that was a lie and judging by Sam's snort he knew it was too. A vampire's scent was as strong to them as theirs was. It was very potent, so much that it was nearly painful and was the closest thing they came to being sick.

"It's not that bad," Jacob amended.

"I could get used to it," Alice said.

It was a statement of fact, but Jasper glowered and a monster roared in his chest. His feelings for the pixie-like girl didn't disappear, it nearly wasn't the equivalent to what he felt for Bella.

"What about the poison?"

She finally looked at him an innocent expression coming over her. "I'll be careful with my teeth. I won't hurt him."

"If you bite him you'll do more than hurt him," Sam lectured cuttingly. "You'll kill him. You're lethal."

Jacob snapped. "That's our concern, Sam! We don't control who we imprint upon."

"Enough," Bella cried, her beautiful voice breaking. "Enough! We can't change things. This is the way it is." She turned to Jasper. "Please, lets go home."

She had plenty for one day. She was right when she said that they would loathe her. Every one of the mongrel's did - apart from Jacob and Seth. It was only a partial excuse for him to rip them limb from limb, he however would not do anything that would cause her additional pain. He couldn't deny her a thing. "Okay."

Sam rose to his feet and nodded their departure in a cold way. Jasper didn't miss Jacob holding Alice's hand. Hers pale white and his russet, one cold, one hot. They were opposites in every mean. He additionally didn't miss how hers unwillingly slipped as she parted from him.

The feral growl almost escaped with the desire to protect, and would have if Bella hadn't been dragging him out into the rain, pelting warm on his face. Merely spying the touch between them sent shivers down his spine. How Alice could stand to be near him he would never comprehend.

The drive home was worse than when they left. Bella had worry (as common as guilt for her) and fury besieging her while Alice gleefully smiled in jubilation in the back seat. There was little for Alice to be upset about. She never cared for war though she didn't mind fighting in it, and she found the reason she couldn't see her future. Mystery solved, ending written, she was happy. Why wasn't Bella?

The two opposing feelings were ripping him apart. He held on as tight as he could to his own emotions. The protectiveness he felt towards his sister, the loathing that replaced gratitude towards Jacob, and the love and care he felt for Bella.

That was six emotions. Six, powerful emotions, and at the same time he had to be wary. If he gripped the steering wheel any more sternly it would crack and crumble into dust. Bella was scrutinizing the paling of his knuckles.

He caught sight of himself in the review mirror. He realized he had no room to judge Sam on sounding insane, he didn't look sensible either. He didn't bother to try to cover it up. He didn't like the idea of Alice and that mutt. It felt like he was betrayed and why should he be furious about that? Jacob wasn't his friend. Jacob owed him nothing, but he was taking her, not from him, but into danger for them both.

When they pulled up their house Alice pranced out, twirling into the doorway, her spiked hair flying sparkling droplets. Before he could get out himself Bella gripped his hand harder, her newborn strength making him flinch.

"Do you still love her?"

Surprised he looked to her. How could she think that? After all they had been through in their short time together didn't he make his feelings clear? "Yes," he declared, "as my sister. The same way you love Edward."

"But why be upset about her and Jacob? If she's happy..."

"It has nothing to do with her happiness. I don't like wolves, I never had. Mortal enemies still doesn't mean anything to you?"

"Jacob helped us!"

"_Please,_ Bella dear, realize the consequences of their actions! The smell of each other may not be as bad, hell after a while they won't even notice it, but one slip and she could kill him."

She didn't respond. She stood out into the rain and he followed, their doors slamming simultaneously. The noise seemed to ring in his ears, the enclosure of the trees bouncing the sound waves back.

She strolled to the edge of the woods, the rain streaming down on her. As upset as she was, how badly he wanted to take that away, he couldn't help but admire the beauty in front of him. Her walk, her voice, her curves, her long dark tresses. She turned and the raindrops fell from her lashes flowing over her plump lips.

In the small part of his brain that was being the least bit rational he could understand Bella. He understood how much peace meant to her. Jacob and Alice loving each other meant that she wouldn't have to fear a war, or anyone getting killed (he would never again bring up the danger her friend was in). Her family on both sides would live in harmony, they'd be forced to.

Jasper loved her. He loved her so much he didn't know how he held it all in and yet he wanted to kill those mutts if nothing for their hatred towards her. But he loved her enough that he would do anything for her. He would be tolerant of the imprint. He would get over his desire to kill the ones she loved. Because he loved her.

It was too much to bear. His frozen heart filled and nearly burst. He ran to her, lifting her up and kissed her full on the mouth. He tasted her, the monster in his chest dying with such devotion. She held him and her sadness was replaced with elation and lust.

If she had any doubts about his love for her she wouldn't anymore. He let her feel the power of his love. He would drown her in it as he constricted her against him and took her mouth with vengeance. He then carried her to the woods. It would be there that he would show her.


	25. Chapter 24

Chapter Nine

Yes

The rain ceased, in its place a slow cadence of the soft drops from the leaves to the mossy ground. Birds chirping along in harmony. He could hear to the highway, but he listened to the only sounds that seemed remotely quiet. It was a peaceful afterglow.

Jasper leaned his back on a tree, Bella in his arms, their clothes at their feet. He kissed the part in her hair, her ears, down to her collarbone. He lifted the slightest to lick the outer edge of her ear.

She sighed a moan and he kissed her lobe. That had been their way of communicating their satisfaction (not that their emotions didn't do the job).

"I can't help but worry," she finally admitted quietly and shamefully. "You said that feelings change."

"When you're a human they are insubstantial. For vampires they're not as easily changeable." He drenched her with his adoration the way the rain hadn't.

"I get it," she giggled breathlessly.

With a single finger he traced the curve of her neck and shoulder, his lips trailing behind. He couldn't get enough of her. Suddenly, eternity made sense. It was made for them and they were made for each other. They could sit they way they were sitting and not crave another thing. He would never tire of her.

_Now was the time._ "Will you look into the pocket of my jacket, darling?"

Bella left his arms for a second as she brought his jacket up She dipped her hand into it withdrawing a small velvet gray box. Her fingers began to shake.

"Open it."

She clicked the lid up and in one glance at the ring she looked to him, her eyes wide. Fear radiated off of her and he didn't dare alter it or ask why. He had to finish it.

Gently he took the box from her and relieved the ring between the folds setting the container aside. "Do you know when I first fell in love with you?"

She shook her head.

"I first fell in love with you the moment we officially met. You were - are... Entrancing, lovely and _real_. You are genuine. When I first accepted what I felt for you was when James went to attack on the baseball field. You see, I already knew you then, you weren't this overly-clumsy girl who nearly got herself killed on a daily basis. You were mine - at least that was how I thought of you. In my mind you could be no one else's. I would've waited for you as long as it took."

She nodded.

He seized her left hand. "You're forever safe now, and we're finally together. All I ask is that you marry me."

"Why," she croaked. "What does it matter if we're married or not?"

"I want it to be legally binding, not merely emotional." He pressed his forehead on her cheek unable to gaze at her agonized expression a moment longer. It didn't lessen the emotion but it was worse seeing it.

He had an inkling why she feared marriage and that had to do with her parents. He held onto that thought, hoping he was right. What he would say next would determine that. "We don't have to have a wedding. We'll elope."

"Alice would never let us get away with that."

He chuckled, comforted that he was correct. She didn't fear marrying him, she feared marriage in general. "She'll forgive us one day." He wiggled the ring and stared into her eyes. "What is your answer, Bella? You can say no. I'll accept that."

"Yes, my answer is yes."

No feeling or emotion in the world he felt before could compare then. He felt like he would burst with joy and it was intensified by hers. He felt death on his neck many times but it was the first time that he felt he would die happily. He slipped the ring on her finger and brought up her hand to his lips kissing the inside of her wrist.

"Now, darling?"

"Get married now?"

"Why wait? We're not having a celebration. We'll celebrate with everyone later - for Alice's sake."

"That sounds fair."

They moved to their feet and dressed. They took their time doing this because they knew that once they left their sanctuary they would have a fierce battle with Alice.

Alice loved parties and occasions as much as she loved clothes, mainly because a lot of occasions (in her opinion) called for buying new clothes. Like she ever needed a reason.

When they exited the woods they saw the vampire of their conversation sitting on the car's hood facing them with a scowl. Jacob was next to her a grin tugging at his lips. Bella's discomfort was overpowering. Apparently she was under the impression that Jacob was one of the werewolves that hated her.

"Hey there Bells... Have fun?"

Bella took a third of a second to register it and she beamed, the discomfort vanishing. "You weren't listening, were you, Jake?"

"Of course not." He hopped off the hood, plugged his nose dramatically before he picked her up in a fierce hug that could rival Emmett's. "This is better than I anticipated. I don't have to worry about hurting you!"

She laughed. "Sure, sure, the important thing is that I can hurt you!"

He let her down and pecked her forehead. "It's weird, I didn't think it would feel the same. That you would still be you, but you are. You're still my Bella."

"And soon you'll be my brother in-law."

With natural grace Alice leapt off the hood and came to join them, her scowl held in place. "I saw what you two are going to do! Without me! I'm supposed to be the maid-of-honor! Our family should be there!"

"Alice, you know how I hate to make a fuss of things!"

"This is marriage! You only get married once!"

Bella raised her brows pointedly and Alice waved her hand. "That wasn't the same, I knew it wouldn't be long, but you two will be for eternity. Don't do this to me, please." She puckered her lip out pleadingly. "I won't make it too huge."

That was a lie. Alice would invite everyone on the planet to attend. But he felt Bella's resolve faltering and he stepped in. "Let us do this our way, Alice. You'll have your own wedding to do."

Jacob raised his hands. "Hold up there, we're not getting married anytime soon! We have a lot to go over, a lot to learn about each other."

"That would change the imprint?"

"No..."

Alice straightened further her chin elevated daringly. "When we get married though we'll invite all of you, and Bella you'll be my maid-of-honor."

"Don't make her feel guilty," Jasper snapped. With every second he was on Earth he refused to let Bella feel an ounce of guilt or pain. He would protect her emotions better than he had protected her human body. "You can hold a party for us later. This isn't a big deal for us, we just want to make it official."

"Then we're coming!"

"Yeah," Jacob agreed. "There's no way I'm missing my best friend getting married. I'll walk her down the aisle," he offered and Bella glowed.

It was interesting how Jacob's aversion to vampires leaves when his best friend becomes one and he inadvertently falls in love with one. _It was a miracle_, he considered dryly but he was grateful for him again. Bella's father couldn't possibly walk her down the aisle, not while her eyes deepened into maroon. A few more weeks... A month...

Alice clapped excitedly, "I'll still be maid-of-honor!"

Bella groaned but was smiling. She gazed up at him and shrugged. "This is our best option."

"It's your _only_ option," Alice rectified. "We're not giving you choices. Now go on and get inside," she put the tip of her finger on her chin thoughtfully, "I'll call some Churches... You are _not_ getting married in an office."

He could feel where it was going. "Alice, we don't want this big."

"No, no, quick and simple. That I can do."

"You're not our wedding coordinator."

"Jazz hush, this what I do best! Don't worry about a thing. It'll just be us. Nothing fancy."

Bella was hesitant and Jasper was impressed with her instincts. Of course Alice was lying about it just being them. He knew better than that...


	26. Chapter 25

Chapter Ten

A Beautiful Monstrosity

Two days... Alice made them wait two whole days before she "allowed" him and Bella to get married. She gave Jasper the location, time, and his tux and dashed upstairs to give Bella her dress. The only thing he was able to do was buy his and Bella's wedding bands.

Jasper listened to Bella's complaints about dressing up. She'd been praying that she could wear jeans. He wanted her happy, to have what she wanted. But having the sister they did, it was a fruitless dream.

Between planning for their marriage it was nothing short of amazing that Alice was able to furnish the house, each with their own room on the second floor. She even set up Jacob one since he had come to live with them (the dog smell would never go away now). Jasper heard him groan too, no doubt over his tux, and Jasper chuckled.

He swore to himself that if the wedding was extravagant in the least he would personally see that Alice made it up to Bella somehow. No matter how long it would take...

Jacob bounded in front of him. "Get out," he demanded.

He glared daggers up at him. "This is our house, dog."

"Alice says you can't see Bella until she's walking down the aisle. It's tradition."

"We're going by tradition," he asked dubiously. What was traditional about them?

He shrugged. "As close as we can get."

_So it was we..._ "You'll be careful with her, won't you?"

"I won't let her trip, she hasn't had one moment of clumsiness... It's a little disappointing," he said sounding like a much rougher version of Emmett.

"I meant Alice."

That took him off-guard. "Oh, well, sure, yeah. Alice takes good care of herself though, but if need be -"

"_You_," he said forcefully. "_You_ be careful around _her._ It only takes one mistake, a moment of anger or agitation."

"You're worried about me?"

"I'm worried what it will do to Bella and Alice if something happens to you." He would never confess to it, but he had grown fond of the mangy pup. He had no worries for their relationship (though it did disgust him) but for their lives. Since Jacob helped with Victoria - all in the name of Bella - he grudgingly considered him something akin to a friend. In time he would have to admit defeat and call him a brother.

"Sure, sure," he said. "We'll be safe, but if something does happen. "He shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Take care of her for me. Don't let Alice do anything stupid."

"I won't. I promise."

Jacob then grinned, his teeth sparkling. "Now, get out. Bella's getting dressed, you have the address. Go."

Jasper stood cuffing him on the shoulder and he left into the rain. He took Alice's brand new Jaguar. He had specific instructions to leave the black one for them. Why it mattered was beyond them.

He drove out to the Chapel that bordered the end of town. It was small and seemed to come from a southern tale. It was washed white and set back into the edge of the woods. There was a dirt path to that led to the side, to three cars. He parked next to them and got out with the white bag containing his tux, mud seeping into his shoes. He walked inside, the door creaking. He stood within the entrance surrounded by religious photographs and a ragged collection box.

Right away a stout balding man ran up to him from the main hall ahead careful to shut the door so Jasper wouldn't see. He was so cheery it was sickening, like pure sap on his tongue.

"Which one are you? Mr. Black or Mr. Hale?"

"Hale."

"Aha, the groom! I must say you and your family are all a good looking bunch! Now, Ms. Cullen gave me direct orders so if you please take this room," he pointed to the right, "and remain there until someone fetches you."

Jasper nodded signaling to the man he understood and went through to the next room. It was quite a shock to see his family there, gathered in the room of mirrors, it made them look double their size in numbers. Carlisle, Esme, Emmett, Rosalie, and Edward, all of them in their best tuxedo's and dresses.

"Alice called us," Carlisle explained.

Esme kissed his cheek and hugged him tightly. "How dare you not call us!"

"Sorry," he said repentant. "This was supposed to be a quick wedding."

"It will be, but that doesn't mean we don't want to be here!"

He smiled solemnly, his eyes catching Edward's. _You came._

He jerked his head in response, no one noticing.

_Does everyone know about Jacob?_

He jerked once more. That was all he needed to know, and by the wrinkling of his features it was safe to assume that the reaction wasn't good. But they would accept it for the same reason Jasper did: They all loved Alice and it was thanks to Jacob that Bella stayed alive while they were gone.

"We better get into our places," Esme herald fondly touching his cheek a last time.

Emmett punched him on the arm on their way out, Edward alone staying behind, and Jasper knew that then was where they would settle things permanently. All their other talks were leading up to it.

Edward's face was clean but there was a raging war going on inside of him. There was a pregnant pause before he asked the question burning him.

"You're the only one who will tell me the truth. Did Bella ever love me?"

It was not a discussion Jasper wanted to have on his wedding day, with his brother, about his soon-to-be-wife. But Edward was right. He would tell him the truth. "It was... Astounding how much she loved you." _Nearly as much as she loves me,_ he thought before he could stop himself.

"And none of that matters now."

"No."

"That's it then."

"It's not the end, Edward. You'll get over Bella and find someone else. This will all work out. Take Alice's optimism."

"In a century or two." It was supposed to be a joke but instead was a serious fact.

"None of this was against you."

"I know..."

Jasper laid his bag on the circular table in the middle of the room. "Be my best man?"

He grinned. "You'd let your brother whose in love with your fiancée be your best man?"

"It would mean a lot to the both of us." Bella would be happy and therefore he would be happy. And who better to stand up with him than someone who loved her nearly as much as he did?

"Thank you, Jasper."

"On one condition... Don't object in the ceremony."

He laughed, "I'll be sure to bite my tongue." He walked to the door, the knob in his hand when he glanced at him. "When I said thank you, that goes for loving Bella too." Then he shut the door behind him.

Jasper put on his black suit, straightened his tie. He took his time but soon heard the fourth and final car pull in. He heard his Bella's voice and resisted the urge to rush out there and meet her.

Without a knock Alice poked her head in. Without looking over at her he waved his hand for her to come in. She did, closing the door. He turned to face her, seeing her in her long teal dress.

"Can you see Edward?" She knew what he meant.

She closed her eyes and smiled widely heaving a sigh. "Yeah, I can see him." She looked to him. "He'll be happy."

"Is there someone?"

"She's quite beautiful."

"Good. Thank you, Alice."

"Get up front," she commanded, putting her serious face back on and prancing away.

He did as he was told, walking into the hall, a lurch in his gut as he saw what Alice had done. He tried not to laugh.

Orchid flowers pink and white were strewn everywhere, over the archway of the double doors he had just marched through, down the aisle and across the pews. It was a beautiful monstrosity.

He took his place beside Edward at the end of the velvet red aisle. Out of his peripheral vision he saw their family stand and turn to the doors as the music began. Alice was the first to walk in practically dancing up the aisle and then came her.

Hung on Jacob's arm was his Bella dear in a long crisp white dress embedded with tiny flowers. Her and her love lit the dim room as she smiled dazzlingly at him.

The whole world fell away. There was only her and him. No one else existed. She was his medicine. She was his for an unlimited of lifetimes and he could see that.

He saw their future with certainty and clarity. Her reunion with Charlie, a second wedding for his benefit and eventually living with their family, her many graduations. He saw infinite days with her.

Jacob gave her his hand and Jasper tenderly pulled her to him. There were a million thoughts racing through his mind but one was coherent.

It was meant to be them all along. Together they were a still but continuous beat matched in perfect harmony.

* * *

A/N: This is the end of my first Twilight fan-fiction. I hope you enjoyed it at least half of how much I enjoyed writing it. Again, it's thanks to Kamarile that it was written at all, it would have long been abandoned without her encouragement.

There's a poll on my profile to decide which story shall be up next. Please, help me out here, and vote.


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